In this quick one (I’m mid-move, so apologies for the rough setup), I walk through the safest, easiest way I’ve found to update XPEnology/Synology DSM on basically any hardware—without the usual stress of losing drives, breaking the install, or ending up in a rebuild. The big reason this is simpler now is the Arc Loader project. It’s honestly the best loader I’ve used, mainly because of the extra tools like the web UI and being able to get to a terminal over the network. I show the exact flow I use on one of my own boxes (a Barracuda Backup server running XPEnology) when a DSM patch is available: kick off the DSM update, let it reboot, and then use Arc Loader’s web UI/“config mode” page if DSM takes its time coming back or the normal Synology interface isn’t loading. The key takeaway is you can do this headless—no monitor needed—because the loader exposes what you need over the network. I also cover the one “must do” prep step: enable Community packages, install the right Python dependency (Python 3.11), then install Arc Control so you can manage add-ons/patches and even update the loader itself from a web UI.