Best Practice for two households or even three

Roon Software Discussion
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Have a client with two homes. Both have setups with Roon Servers and multiple rooms of music. What is the preferred setup if cost is not the concern(as audiophiles we shouldn’t be anyways lol)?

Separate accounts and synch the libraries automatically?

Use the same account and authorize/deauthorize. Synching?

I know this is covered elsewhere and a clean way to do this is coming but a clear step by step instruction would be super helpful for now. Also I am happy to pay for someones time to go through this (assuming they are an expert).

Thank you!

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Are the music files themselves duplicated (or nearly so) at each site? Or is there one set of music files that are accessed by each site?

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I don’t believe one can sync multiple accounts against each other.

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Thank you for the responses.

Currently the music library is not duplicated at each site but that would be one of the goals along with sharing the Roon database (mostly the client specific metadata algorithms). I was thinking of using Synology or something similar to sync the libraries. Then for now it looks like I should just setup two different accounts and not link the Roon data. Unless there is a workaround?

Hoping maybe Roon could advise a best practices sheet for customers who want have multiple locations. I saw that they were working on a solution but in the meantime wondering what the best solution is. Just live with two unique accounts or have one account and authorize and deauthorize the core each time you travel to a different location.

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If you don’t want to use Roon in different places at the same time then this is what people in your situation have done.

  1. Put your music files on a external USB drive.
  2. Backup your Roon library to a USB drive. A large thumb drive will probably do.
  3. Authorize/deauthorize Roon Core at different locations, as needed.
  4. Plug in USB drive with music files.
  5. Restore Roon library from thumb drive.

Any changes you make at one location, i.e. tags, favorites, etc.,won’t be carried over to another unless you do Backup/Restore. Make sure you use Roon’s Backup/Restore rather than some other application.

Another license won’t buy anything except increased costs.

Also, I don’t believe you can Restore a Backup made under one account to a different account.

Maybe @support has a different take.

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Hi @Brian_Cory,

I would agree with Slim’s suggestion here. Unless your client plans on operating both RoonServer instances at the same time, having a USB or NAS drive with the media + a Roon backup would be the way to go.

This would ensure that any edits made will carry over, and I can confirm that you can only restore a backup if it is using the same account, something to keep this in mind if you decide to have two separate licenses.

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I tried to do the same instance at work and at home. Drove me crazy. Super crazy. No easy fix.

Size of library is the greatest modifier but below are my findings. At 80,000 tracks, having to restore the backup each time you get to the new location is a real pain. Especially with windows. I’ve found Mac much snappier and more reliable when doing anything with library folders and structure.

The most rock solid/least Roon fuss option is to keep the server on one laptop or mac mini and just cart that between them. The library of files can be on the computer or on an external drive (external 2tb SSDs are now decently priced or put one

I’ve given up now and just listen to spotify at work but one method that had promise was to have an external SSD mini NAS at both work and home. These can sync themsleves over the internet and then you set nightly Roon backups to dropbox and restore from either location as needed.

Hope this helps.

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I have two homes and loads of audio gear at each. I regularly sync the homes.

You say “clients” — is it your goal to give a turn-key, professionally installed, set it and forget it type of feel? That’s likely not possible unless the entire digital audio footprint at each house is literally identical.

That’s because library restore does more than backup/restore/duplicate the library. It overwrites all of the configurations and settings.

It overwrites storage location settings, backup path settings, and audio endpoint settings (EVERYTHING, but those are the ones likely to be different at each location). It’s the audio endpoint settings being overwritten that is most problematic. Unless you have identical endpoints at each location (including computer and idevice names, desired dsp settings, everything) you’re going to have to repeat the setup and configuration of each endpoint after each restore. Grouping zones, the whole bit.

So your client would have two steps requiring significant Roon knowledge: (1) backup and restore, that can take an hour at house #2 before the music is available; then (2) repeat the whole endpoint and dsp configuration of Roon, including all displays.

It’s doable- I do it every Friday- but not turnkey or professional. Not what you want to saddle a client with. Better to get 2 licenses (so they work at both houses) and present them as separate systems that can occasionally be synced with some technical effort or by you.

IMHO, Roon is not ready for multi-house professional installation. Great experience once it’s working. But, for example, playlists, bookmarks, profiles and tags made at the second location will disappear when overwritten by a backup-restore from the primary location.

Better just to have your clients think of it as two entirely separate installs and don’t create the expectation they’ll be synched. Of course, you can still sync the music using a third party solution!

If on the other hand your client is a power user willing to roll up his or her sleeves and reconfigure at each backup/restore, it does work just fine.

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Yeah, as long as one doesn’t want to use multiple systems at once, i.e. one license would be sufficient, then I like this solution best of all.

You’ll still have to configure endpoints each time, but once you’ve done it subsequent configurations shouldn’t be a big deal.

However, I’d use a NUC rather than a laptop.

If you have multiple licenses there’s no real way to duplicate across those systems without some manual updating of changes.

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Wow is that true? You cannot backup/restore across multiple licenses? I only have one so have never tried. If so that is a pretty big disincentive to separately license multiple locations. Counter-revenue!

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I agree that will provide duplicate core

Now when you move location put in the USB Drive , swap licenses and go it makes the USB the master syncing and deleting etc so back up well

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Yes, true. Can’t think of why other than that it probably didn’t come up when the design was finalized.:sunglasses:

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Always a good idea, no matter what.:sunglasses:

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That’s a serious reason NOT to buy more than one license. Odd business decision. Means you cannot duplicate a library and use it in 2 locations simultaneously.

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A simple solution would be for Roon to allow two active cores on one license. They wouldn’t even need to recode their backup/restore function :rofl:

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Because of a networking issue I used my one account to create two extra Roon installations in addition to the one I normally use on Linux (CentOS): a Windows 10 Roon core (in a VM running on the Linux server), and ROCK (as MOCK, running in a VM on the Linux server).

There is only one set of media files (on the Linux server), it was mounted via CIFS (SAMBA) simultaneously on the Windows 10 and ROCK Roon cores.

With just one license I was only able to run three Roon cores, one at a time, ofcourse.

Thus I found out that Roon runs nicely in in a VM. And the Roon library doesn’t have to be local at all, it can be mounted from anywhere - anywher ein this case was right off the server hosting the VMs.

So you can do the following: take the entire Roon core installation and the library, with its config and stats and track corrections and everything, with you, as a VM, on portable media (like a USB drive).

Now, technically savvy folks can do this, and they can do it for their clients too who don’t have to know anything at all: You take the USB drive along and plug it into the Linux server setups at various locations and turn it on - the VM gets booted on startup. It has the same name, same Roon core with the same account, same Library - it is the the one single configuration.

No need to synchronize 80,000+ tracks or whatever. (Ofcourse, Backups still need to be made - heck, clone the VM and stick that copy on the shelf.)

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Surely if have a drive of music and import that to 2 instances of roon you will 2 indentical libraries

If that drive is portable, say USB as you connect to either instance import or deletion will occur ie sync

Am I right?

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Yeah sure, the media files are identical. However the Roon library is part of the Roon core installation, meaning it is more than just the files.

For example, I have one set of folders and files = my albums. Both three different Roon cores AND a Logitech Media Server installation use that one set of files. However, none of those Roon cores and the LMS have the same meta data (except ofcourse what the files have embeded).

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Is there any music software that can actually sync databases between multiple databases? I guess moving to a Plex type model would work better, one core that can be accessed anywhere with the Roon app remote.

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Not that I’m aware of, multiple file structures yes

Jriver allows for multiple Prenamed libraries from the same (or multiple) sources then select at the control point at playback