At this point I am having no problems per say, but I do have a question.
Currently I am running ROON off a dedicated PC only being used for Music. When I put this new system together I had to start somewhere, consisting of a Simaudio Moon Integrated, Lumin D2, Revel F208’s. I already had this dedicated WIN 10 DELL PC in place I used for Jriver and Bluos testing. So that was the starting point with ROON using the that PC, and its one internal HDD hard drive for both a Music File and ROON and everything else. It works OK but I assume is not the best setup. I just loaded ROON, and ROON just found the Music file it and off it worked.
So I have read and it suggested that an SSD would be better. So is it possible and feasible to add an SSD to my PC for better operation of ROON and Music files and leave the existing HDD for rest of the system ?
Admittedly I have never added a second drive before, but wondering if this is a good step for now as I get more into ROON and add more music ? It looks like WD or Samsung good choices for
the SSD. Internal verse external ?
The os and roon need to be on the same boot drive and while it’s possible to clone over the hdd to an ssd to achieve this it’s going to require some additional software for windows to do the clone, then you will have to swap out the HDD and replace with the SSD clone
Depending on the Size of your existing HDD.
There are large SSD available, but not very cheap.
Samsung offers a Software, to just move the complete OS to a new Disk.
The only thing is, to set the BIOS of the PC to boot from the new SSD.
I bought an USB Docking from Sharkoon. Put the SSD in there.
After the cloning, shut down the PC - then replace the existing HDD with the SSD.
Boot the PC to check if everything is ok.
Then you can use the Sharkoon Docking to format the HDD. After that you can just add the disk, and use it as a Spare Drive.
So as I read here and other places, you really can’t have 2 drives in my PC one, one HDD and one SSD, as some part of ROON (?) must be on the drive with the WIN 10 ?
It is all working fine but I have a lot of music, including quite a few SACD’s to load and figure that will become an issue. So I don’t know about leaving it as it is for a longer period is a good option, though maybe I should. So I guess I do not know what to do at this point, as I don’t want to make this harder than it needs to be or something I cannot figure out to do and then it does not work.
I also have a WD 2 HDD drive NAS used only backing up PC’s in the house that could possibly be used somewhere in this ?
Exactly - I have my complete music stored on a NAS - The core on a W10 PC with SSD.
Another HTPC is working with Roon as a Client and is attached to a USB-DAC.
The Core is, where you need Power (at the beginning).
Every Windows PC will profit from an SSD as a Boot Drive.
Every PC…be it a MAC, NUC, NAS, Desktop, Notebook, whatever hardware - Windows Linux MacOS/OS X ROCK Nucleus etc or any other Hardware/OS combo all will benefit from SSD/Flash boot media.
Data storage can be anywhere and on anything as long as the supported data speed needs are met. Music streaming doesn’t require that much speed - this is why normal Tidal and Qobuz and others work over the internet - certainly not LAN speed needed. High bitrate DSD etc and multichannel are more demanding and internet streams must struggle but wired LAN speeds should be no issue. Wifi might struggle depending on your implementation.
Adding HDD for local data will be subject to the hardware being able to accommodate them internally or via USB external connection. Roon will be able to see the music as long as the drive is accessible locally or via SMB V1
So I think I found enough info on line for me to accomplish this. I found SSD 250gb locally. Based on what I have read from all here, a 250GB SSD should be enough as a boot drive, and then keep the HDD installed for data, mostly music.
I know there is software out there, but the only worrisome process is getting the correct files etc on the SSD for ROON and OS and keep the rest on the HDD. Is there specific programs anybody knows of to do that ?
Personally, I would keep this as stressless as possible. I’ve found Acronis True Image very helpful. What I’ve done in the past:
Make a complete backup of Roon to one location (NAS)
Make a complete backup of my current hard disk with Acronis (NAS)
Make a stripped down backup of my current hard disk, taking out things Documents, Downloads, Music, Desktop, etc. (NAS)
Make a backup of my Outlook Files.
Make a restore boot disk with Acronis to USB
Do your hardware stuff, having it boot from the boot disk and then restore your stripped down version to the SSD. Then reload Roon. You can restore the miscellaneous stuff from the more complete Acronis backup to your HDD.
This isn’t very slick, but I like the security of the backups in case I screw up.
I understand.
But if you ultimately put the operating system on a SSD, you definitely want a backup of your HDD. I found it was difficult to recover from the standard Windows backup. I really like Acronis because it is friendly to use.