Cheapest* install of ROCK - *EDIT Least expensive for my needs*

Roon Software Discussion ROCK
21

All I can say is I have the following library running on a NUC5i3 with 4GB and 240GB SATA SSD

B79FED3B-C5C1-473B-9F75-07C15968F56A.jpeg
B79FED3B-C5C1-473B-9F75-07C15968F56A.jpeg2048×192 76.2 KB

The Roon server is responsive to this size of library, which is stored on a ReadyNAS Pro2, with everything networked over 1G backbone, with only my Network player, a Naim NDS having a 100Mbit/s port.
This is served by either a SonoreUPnP Bridge running an UltraRendu or XMOS based USB->S/PDIF convertor into the Digital input, with the former being preferred for better SQ.

I have been running the NUC5i3 configuration for a couple of years now, and before a DC3217IYE, which is 2nd Gen NUC, with i3, 8GB of RAM and a 240GB SSD - when ROCK first came out in 2017 and it ran just fine, even though not on the supported list (which the NUC5i3 is). That NUC is out on loan to a friend, who is deciding whether to go down the Roon path, and reporting no issues.

I do have multiple zones, and they can run simultaneously, but given they are ‘Upstairs’ and ‘Downstairs’ they don’t tend to be.
DSP requirements are the down-converting on the few albums I have in DSD128, DSD256 or 24/384 to my max supported format (24/192 & DSD64). I have no requirement for DSD upsampling, nor room correction (Digital tone controls!)

If I thought the NUC5i3 wasn’t working well or up-for-the-task I would of swapped it out for a later Gen or i5 CPU.

Now with the latest BIOS you can run a PCI NVMe SSD on the NUC5 for the RoonOS and database, this will give some extra read performance over the SATA, but this option wasn’t available when these NUCs were originally built. However this would only affect the access to the internal Roon database, all other storage is either over the SATA interface or as in my configuration, a network connection to the NAS. BTW this is the same with any other NUC model - local storage is either internal SATA or USB3, so newer NUC are just faster CPUs.
So not sure if there is any advantage of the NVMe SSD, maybe for search performance, but I understand the next Roon release is going to address some of those issues, as they are across the board with all users and mainly due to when the search extends to Tidal and Qobuz services.

What’s interesting is that many forum members are like ‘not enough power’, ‘horsepower is best’, but with ROCK there is no monitoring, no CPU load metrics, no I/O wait stats, no number of database locks, so how does anyone know, what the hardware resource utilisation is, or where any performance bottlenecks are?

Remember the Nucleus server, Roon’s own product, was a NUC with a i3 CPU with 8GB and 64GB SSD.

We recently found out that a Nucleus+ can be upgraded to 16GB RAM, but the only symptom of ROCK running out of RAM is it crashes frequently - so if your ROCK server is not crashing regularly it is not running out of RAM. I have had over 90 days of uptime on my ROCK server, at one point, given there hasn’t been a new build release in a while.

Simon

22

That’s mostly true, but clicking on the signal path light will tell you your processing speed (of sorts). I’m now playing a 24 bit FLAC file with DSP Convolution filter on a Nuc8i7 and getting ~25X processing speed. I know if I add in DSD upsampling (which I virtually never do) it could drop down a lot more, but would still probably be above 2 (minimum standard). So at least in my isolated experience, I know about what the limit is, just for my system. It would be very, very helpful if there were some compendium of people’s experiences with these different configurations so users could judge for themselves.
Your post is really helpful for calibration. I also believe @CrystalGipsy has run an i3 and found performance is not at all lacking.
Personally (and this is just my philosophy) I buy more horsepower than I need as software will generally grow into available hardware over time. I also tend to use it.
This is an interesting thread as the title is “Cheapest”, but as the OP evolved their needs maybe “least expensive for my needs” is more accurate.

2 Likes
23

I bought a second hand NUC 7i5 and it handles my 40k library and does DSP to multiple zones fine. Currently showing 60x processing speed streaming to 5 zones doing DSP on 3 of them.

1 Like
24

Yes, and the NUC5 models were introduced in 2015, targeted at running Windows with possible dual displays, as a desktop machine.
Putting a Linux based OS on them and you get a much better machine with dual HD displays, and even when running Docker environments, testing software, there is little CPU load, RAM usage, as Linux is a much better OS for resource utilization. I have seen a NUC used as a benchmark testbed, going up to hundreds of threads and transactions per second to find bottlenecks in transactional software, capable of millions of transactions per day.

ROCK is an embedded Linux OS based headless appliance, with no desktop or displays to worry about, no graphics processing or screen rendering.

I plan to keep my NUC5i3, which has been running ROCK server since 2017, until it stops doing what I need it to do - that makes it ‘lowest cost of ownership’ ROCK server!

25

Get an i5. Much better performance than an i3, yet really close to an i7 without the power draw and price. Plenty of deals out there - just shop around.