Announcing Roon Server packages for QNAP and Synology

Roon Software Discussion QNAP/Synology NAS
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The Roon ecosystem includes rich control apps for iOS and Android, and allows streaming to many different types of audio hardware. The one thing we keep hearing is that users wish they had more options for where to run their Roon Core.

Today, we’re proud to announce Roon Server for compatible QNAP and Synology NAS devices, which means you can enjoy the Roon experience without a PC!

For users with a high-performance NAS, it’s now possible to combine content storage, backup, and Roon Core on a single device.

This announcement is a first in more ways than one… It’s the first time we’ve collaborated with a member of the Roon community!

Christopher Rieke (@crieke) had started working on the Synology version of Roon Server on his own, so we contacted him and arranged to work together on these projects. Chris will be involved in the maintenance and support for both of these NAS packages in the future.

Which NAS is right for me?

NAS devices come in many shapes and sizes. Just as it’s important to pay attention to hardware specs when choosing a PC, you’ll want to be sure the NAS you choose has the performance necessary to run Roon Server now and in the future, as we add even more features.

Any NAS with a 64-bit Intel CPU is compatible, but to get the best experience, we strongly recommend a top-of-the-line (Core i3 or i5) NAS with expanded RAM (4GB or more). Detailed information about which NAS products are supported and how to install Roon on your QNAP or Synology NAS are available on our Knowledge Base.

Thanks as always for your support!
The team at Roon Labs

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Great! Happy for Christopher, very polite, I currently have a Synology 916+, 8gb ram, 500gb ssd Roon works perfectly.

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Installed Roon on my Qnap 451S, worked in 2 minutes, love it !

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Installed Roon on my Qnap 453 8GB, worked in 60 minutes, love it but…
unfortunately turned out a little later that my QNAP is not fast enough.
So I went back to my very fast PC.
A new i7 NAS is to expensive at this moment…

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Happy with Synology DS916+

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Squeezebox Touch not working with QNAP

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Thank you Roon Labs and @crieke for your Really Great Work!!

I enjoyed Chirstopher’s .spk from April :wink:
My DS1515+ works very fine and
it can output to OPPO BDP-105 USB Audio via DS1515+ usb connection.

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Happy user of the awesome @crieke package. Great to see the formal endorsement, excellent community embracing!!
Well done to @danny and @crieke both!

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here here! bravo @crieke & @danny

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I’ve migrated yesterday my Roon server within 10min from my Windows machine to my Synology RackStation without any issues. Many many thanks for the Synology package!

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I have a QNAP 453 pro 8gB ram I was running Roon on via Linux station. Just switched to the dedicated package (@crieke) package and an SSD, everything is now slightly snappier, could not get local share working so reverted to SMB for now, but many thanks Christopher for developing and supporting this package.

Bob

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I have similar experience with same NAS and RAM. Seems the stated minimum requirements are realistic.

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Hello Robert,

Could you clarify in what extend it is not fast enough with the NAS : display on a computer or tablet, indexation of titles, analyses of the titles ?

Thanks for your feedback

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Everything is perfectly fast enough, my comment was that the native QNAP package developed by Christopher is slightly faster than a linux VM running Roon as you would expect. The VM version runs a version of Linux under the QNAP OS which is in itself a linux core. The native package is an app that runs directly on the QNAP OS. the SSD helps as well as that handles database tasks.

Bob

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I use to have RoonServer on a QNAP TS-251+ on a FEDORA VM with 8Go memory and I was quite happy.
I had the opportunity to obtain a Brix i7/32GoRam/SSD M2 500Go and i install roonserver on it under Fedora 24.
I must say that I’m not sure to really feel any difference when I use Roon through my iPad but fore sure indexation of my 30.000titles is very slow through the network (gigabyte…) as RoonServer on the brix is indexing files on the NAS through NFS…After 4 days just 50% of the audio has been analysed.
With everything on the QNAP in 2 days the audio analyze was performed…

Just for thought

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@Patatorz – network file transfer of all the audio data is going to be much slower than local access. Running Roon Server on the NAS avoids the network transfer.

Your NAS is spending more CPU time and make more heat to do that same analysis, but your network is even slower than that expenditure. That’s why the i7 analysis is taking longer. Pretty much everything else will be slower on the NAS compared to your i7.

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Thanks Danny, it was my conclusion : the difference between local and “remote through network”.
I will make my test to ensure that the i7 makes sense with my collection

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Are there any advantages, sonic or otherwise, to eliminating the PC and having a NAS run Roon and handle storage? Right now I’m running Roon off my laptop with music in an external hard drive plugged into the laptop’s usb port. I’m streaming music from my PC to a Meridian Sooloos MS600 in my living room.

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In your setup with the MS600, there will be no sonic advantages or disadvantages.

If you NAS is better spec’d than your PC, then your Roon experience will get better. If your PC is better spec’d, the experience will get worse.

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