Hi Marten,
I wouldn’t worry about optimization at this point. Listen to the current system for a bit, and then try some optimizations. That way you will have a point of reference for comparison; to know if the optimization actually changed anything.
Personally, imho, a better optimization would be to connect to your DAC via ethernet and not directly to the server.
Not many dacs has Ethernet only if it has a build in streamer.
I have a dedicated usb card from matrix audio with an external power supply.
No sata disk only nmve. Also good power cables
I have a very comprehensive computer network… desktops, servers, firewalls, home automation, media… all running for years now.
All run Linux. There are no Windoze machines.
I only recently started using Roon. Roon has a serious deficiency… there is no Linux client. I have to use Android… not a crippling issue.
For listening I have kef, bluos, CA, rpi, and Linux endpoints. All work…mostly on RAAT. Covers 5 rooms currently.
All my audio media was ripped to flac years ago from my CD collection and stored on a fileserver on the network. New titles are downloaded as studio quality flac and added.
ALL files are stored on the Linus ext4 file system.
The file server is Openmediavault which is a 1st class storage solution… Great management interface using any browser - disk and file management, Raid capability, backup, sharing.
I have 10Tb of files stored.
Openmediavault has very frugal computing needs, so I installed ROON on the same machine… i5, 8gb, 500Gb ssd system disk, 1Gbe network + raid array.
Openmediavault is free, uses Debian Linux and Roon installed faultlessly. Roon accesses the audio files natively using the Linux filesystem.
The Openmediavault management gives clear, simple, text and graphical, comprehensive access to how the Linux machine is running and looks after all your disks storing your precious music. You get top rate server maintenance without the need to understand the intricacies of Linux.
The sound is excellent… the roon interface through Android is superb, and the security and management of roon ‘under the hood’ is professional and simple.
I would highly recommend Openmediavault for Roon. Covers almost all of the issues that need to be addressed running, maintaining, managing Roon… PLUS you get an Enterprise class Linux file server for FREE!
OK… you’ll have to learn a bit about setting up a small pc, about Debian, and Openmediavault… but it’s WELL worth the effort.
Remember… there’s no such thing as a free lunch… but this is a Michelen *** at food court ££.
I’m using a minimal install of Debian: only the basic install with the standard system utilities. No gui because ROON runs as a service. I can connect to my headless ROON server with ssh. Linux Debian is rock solid! I built a HDPlex case with a JCAT Netcard XE ethernet connection with my Auralic streamer.
It has been useful searching for linux optimisation and I stumbled to this web page that has a script for identifying enhancements: System configuration [Linux-Sound]
Required some further searching to make the cpu performance sticky but otherwise quite straightforward.
I’m running Buster headless. Sounds great.
I’m running a headless Euphony system plus Roon core connected to GraceDesign m903 DAC and am super happy with that system
I use Debian for the server, headless with Webmin for the very occasional admin task/reboot etc and Audiolinux as an endpoint
Both rock solid
I run Roon core on a dedicated server running Slackware 14+ (current) with home rolled low latency kernel. Current count is 92,210 tracks.
I have two different laptops as Roon endpoints running Arch. Both with custom kernels and basically the bare minimum of everything else. One in an equipment rack the other in a network rack and managed only via SSH. In both cases USB out to standalone DACs. Then on to a PreAmp in one case and a Integrated amp in the other. Home network is fully wired.
Never had an issue with any of it.
Prior to going to Roon, about a year ago, I ran either Arch or Audiophile-linux on various systems with MPD as the music backend. It was fine, but the size of my library often caused me many issues with the App based frontends to MPD I was using.
There is no difference in sq having a music file on ssd/nvme or hdd. How can it be different? Every bit read off of any storage device is placed in ram before sending it out of the computer. You can’t read straight from a storage device to the output port. You can have flash cache but all that does is keep you from having to read the data off the hdd/ssd.
Speed? In a half a revolution of a decent hdd, you can read many music files. It’s more important to have the index on ssd/nvme than a music file.
I love linux for corporate servers, ran large corporate apps on them for a couple decades. I’m sorry but It’s kind of funny seeing people try to optimize their server to run Roon on them and what lengths they will strive to save a cpu cycle. Has anybody looked at the server stats while running Roon to see how much resources are actually taken up by Roon? I have compared running Roon on a corporate size server with hundreds of GB of ram and tens of thousands of $$$ worth of ssd to a smallish multiple core personal computer and there was no difference in sq. Speed, not much difference if you have the index on ssd, enough ram, and decent cpu speeds. Roon only runs on 1 cpu so the other cpus are idling.
Some caveats:
If you are using usb to your dac, then I would favor a Linux distro that tries to optimize the usb output data. Good luck, usb to dac sucks!
I don’t run backups at the same time I play music. Easy to configure this scheduling.
I keep my storage devices on a different bus than my output to the dac.
Thanks for sharing @john_gillies I’m going for the same approach. Did you install Roon via terminal? I have an old NAS now from Qnap but is not working as it should. So I’m going to use my PC with Intel i7, 16 RAM, 256 GB NVME (for OMV and Core) and 3,5" HDD total 8 TB.
Hi Emanuel, I installed Roon from the terminal. I have a headless OMV system so I connect to it using SSH from a remote machine.
The installation was simple and uneventful… the Roon staff have made a very nice job of getting the Roon Server to work on Linux.
(I wish that they would do the same for a Linux client).
I guess that the purists at OMV would recommend that ANY non-standard app should be installed in a docker environment. This makes sense to separate OMV from any bad behaviour of a ‘foreign’ app. My experience is that Roon is perfectly well behaved. I have run Roon on OMV faultlessly for nearly a year now.
I have used docker images within OMV and they work well, but l have not attempted to run Roon in docker.
Hope this helps. please let me know how your installation goes.
Best wishes, John
Hi John,
The installation went rather well, I used Putty. I followed the installation instructions from Roon and all went well. A small issue when adding music but after a little while I figured that out. I also installed Plex through Docker but that’s another story. So far I haven’t had any issues with Roon on OMV. Very pleased 
Great to hear that your installation went well. Roon has done an excellent job here.
There are probably tweaks that one can play with like the kernel tuning that John Matten mentions above but if the sound works then I leave this for another day. 
I’ve used ubuntu server and dietpi. Both work fine. These would be my recommendation.
Snake oil might also work, but requires more leg work.
