SNMP Monitoring for NAS: Synology & QNAP Setup + OIDs

By the SNMP Monitoring team · Reviewed July 2026

A NAS is where the data lives, which makes its health the least forgiving thing on your network to ignore. A degraded RAID volume that nobody's watching is a single disk failure away from data loss; a filling volume silently stops backups; an overheating bay shortens every drive's life. SNMP is a clean way to keep continuous eyes on all of it. The trick with a Synology or QNAP box is that it splits across two worlds: the standard MIBs (HOST-RESOURCES for storage, IF-MIB for interfaces) give you the portable baseline, while volume status, disk health, and temperature — the NAS-specific things you most want — live in the vendor MIBs, SYNOLOGY-MIB and QNAP-MIB. This guide covers enabling SNMP on both, the standard metrics, and how to reach the vendor data responsibly.

Parent: devices. Related: disk sensor, interface sensor, RAID monitoring.

Enabling SNMP (Synology DSM / QNAP)

Both platforms run a Linux-based OS with SNMP built in — you just switch it on in the web UI:

1. Synology (DSM): open Control Panel → Terminal & SNMP → SNMP, tick Enable SNMP service, choose v2c or v3, and set the community or v3 credentials.
2. QNAP: open Network & Virtual Switch → SNMP (older firmware: Control Panel → SNMP), enable the service, and set the community or v3 user.
3. Set a real community — never leave it public; use a random read-only string, or prefer SNMPv3 on either platform for authentication and encryption.
4. Restrict access — bind SNMP to the management interface where possible, and add a firewall rule (both NAS OSes have one) permitting UDP 161 only from your manager.
5. Verify with an snmpwalk from the manager before wiring it into monitoring.

The best practice worth stressing: a NAS often holds your most sensitive data, so treat its SNMP exposure seriously — v3 where you can, a tight source allowlist always, and read-only access. Broader guidance is on security hardening.

Standard metrics

Because both platforms are Linux underneath, the cross-platform MIBs work exactly as they do on any server. HOST-RESOURCES-MIB gives you the storage table — each volume and mount reported with size and used space, so you can track how full a volume is and alert before it fills. IF-MIB gives you the interfaces — throughput and status on each NIC, which matters on a NAS that's serving files over the network and can bottleneck on its own link. These standard metrics alone cover capacity and network health, and they read identically to a Linux server, so a NAS slots straight into your existing monitoring. The storage objects are detailed on disk sensor and interfaces on interface sensor.

Vendor MIBs: volume, disk health, temperature

The metrics that make a NAS a NAS — RAID/volume state, per-disk health, system temperature — aren't in the standard MIBs. They live under each vendor's enterprise branch (1.3.6.1.4.1):

This is where the anti-guessing discipline matters. SYNOLOGY-MIB exposes objects for volume status (normal, degraded, crashed), individual disk status, and system temperature; QNAP-MIB offers equivalents. But the exact leaf OIDs vary by model and firmware, so don't assume a number — load the vendor MIB into your manager so the objects resolve to names, and confirm against Synology's or QNAP's published MIB documentation which leaves your unit actually implements. Walk the vendor subtree on your specific device to see what's present. The value of these objects is real — a degraded volume status is exactly the early warning that lets you replace a failing disk before a second failure loses data — but you get it by reading the vendor MIB, not by inventing an OID. Enterprise-tree background is on enterprise OIDs.

Reading with snmpwalk

Start with the standard storage table to see the volumes and their fullness:

snmpwalk -v2c -c S3cr3tR0str1ng 10.0.0.50 hrStorageDescr

HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.1 = STRING: Physical Memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.31 = STRING: /volume1
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.32 = STRING: /volume2

Read hrStorageSize and hrStorageUsed at the same index to compute how full /volume1 is. Then, with the vendor MIB loaded, walk the vendor subtree by name to reach volume and temperature status:

snmpwalk -v2c -c S3cr3tR0str1ng 10.0.0.50 SYNOLOGY-MIB::synology

SYNOLOGY-MIB::systemStatus.0 = INTEGER: normal(1)
SYNOLOGY-MIB::temperature.0 = INTEGER: 41

Walking by name (rather than a hard-coded numeric OID) is the honest way to do this — it resolves whatever your model actually exposes and won't mislead you with an assumed leaf that isn't there.

Alerting on disk and volume health

The alerts that protect the data are the vendor-metric ones:

• Degraded/crashed volume — the single most important NAS alert; a degraded RAID volume needs immediate attention before another disk fails.
• Disk health / SMART — a disk reporting a failing or warning status should be replaced proactively.
• Temperature — sustained high system or disk temperature shortens drive life and can indicate a fan or airflow problem.
• Volume fullness — from the standard storage table, warn before a volume fills and stops backups or writes.

Set these with warning and critical thresholds, and treat volume-degraded and disk-failing as high priority. RAID-specific monitoring is covered on RAID monitoring, disk-space specifics on disk-space monitoring, and alerting mechanics on alerting.

Frequently asked questions

How do I enable SNMP on Synology or QNAP?

On Synology, go to Control Panel → Terminal & SNMP → SNMP and enable the service; on QNAP, use Network & Virtual Switch → SNMP. Choose v2c or v3, set a random read-only community (or v3 credentials), restrict access to your manager's IP with the NAS firewall, and verify with an snmpwalk before adding it to monitoring. Prefer SNMPv3 on a device holding sensitive data.

What OID is the NAS volume status?

Volume/RAID status lives in the vendor MIB — SYNOLOGY-MIB or QNAP-MIB under the vendor's enterprise tree — not in a standard MIB. The exact leaf varies by model and firmware, so load the vendor MIB into your manager and walk the vendor subtree by name to find the volume-status object your unit exposes, rather than assuming a numeric OID.

Can SNMP read disk health on a NAS?

Yes, through the vendor MIB. SYNOLOGY-MIB and QNAP-MIB expose per-disk status objects (and often SMART-derived health and temperature), so you can poll and alert on a failing disk before it takes a volume down. These are vendor-specific leaves — confirm the exact OIDs against the vendor's published MIB for your model instead of inventing one.

Do the standard storage OIDs work on a NAS?

Yes. Because Synology and QNAP run Linux-based OSes, the standard HOST-RESOURCES-MIB storage table works — each volume appears with size and used space, so you can track fullness exactly as on a Linux server. Interfaces come through the standard IF-MIB too. Use these for portable capacity and network metrics, and the vendor MIB for RAID, disk health, and temperature.

Key takeaways

• A NAS holds the data, so volume and disk health monitoring is critical — a degraded RAID is a warning you can't miss.
• Standard MIBs cover the portable baseline: HOST-RESOURCES for storage, IF-MIB for interfaces.
• Volume status, disk health, and temperature are vendor-specific — SYNOLOGY-MIB / QNAP-MIB under the enterprise tree.
• Load the vendor MIB and walk by name — don't assume vendor leaf OIDs; verify against vendor docs.
• Enable via the DSM / QNAP web UI, prefer SNMPv3, and restrict to the manager on a data-bearing device.
• For independent off-box checks, see external monitoring with ostr.io.