I have 1 main drive (APFS) and 2 backups for my Roon library (1 APFS and other Fat32) All 3 drives show the same track count in Roon (765,128) My maain drive shows 62,319 albums while the 2 backup drives only show 54,923 and 54,913. The browsing preferences are all set to yes.
I just used Carbon Copy Cloner to compare the drives and the Roon library on all 3 uses the same disc space.
Hello @Paul_Elliott,
To put it simply: the discrepancy in album counts is happening because Roon is still actively working on identifying your massive library (over 200,000 tracks are currently pending).
While tracks remain unidentified, Roon relies on your physical folder structures to group them into albums. Because APFS and FAT32 file systems read folder paths differently, Roon is grouping these unidentified albums differently on each drive.
There is nothing wrong with your backups! Please just leave your Core running and wait for Roon to finish building and identifying the entire library. Once the background process is complete, the album counts will naturally align across all your drives.
Ok thanks, doesn’t the the spiner at the top right signify that Roon is identifying the library, I waited until it stopped spinning.
Hi Vadim, Roon is no longer actively working on identifying my library. I switch libraries to compare them and one library still has the larger number of albums approx 62319 while to other 2 have approx 54, 923 and all 3 have the same number of tracks and all use the same disc space. I always wait until the spinning disc at the top of the screen has finished. Is there a way to force Roon to identify the missing albums correctly?
The folder count using terminal is 69299 in both Novus 20TB and Lacie
Could you please clarify what you mean by “switched libraries”?
Could you also describe how you change the library in Roon?
Understanding your exact process will help us pinpoint the problem.
Thanks!
Hi Alex,
I mean that I go into Roon storage settings, disable the current Roon Library (Novus 20TB) and enable another copy of the Roon Library (LaCie 16TB) and wait for Roon to import all the tracks and stop analysing.
I hope that clarifies my meaning
Hi @Paul_Elliott,
Thanks for the extra detail — that really helps clarify things.
Looking at your setup, I can see you actually have three separate storage locations configured in Roon, not two:
/Roon Music Library/Roon Library/Roon LibraryThe key thing I notice is that Novus 20TB and “Roon library” use different folder names, which suggests they contain different music — and when both are active at the same time, Roon combines them into one library. Your 62,319 album count is most likely the combined total of both those drives together.
When you switch to LaCie, you’re only enabling one drive, so you’re missing whatever is on the other active drive — which would explain the ~7,400 album gap.
Could you confirm a few things:
Once we know which combination gives which count, we can pinpoint exactly what’s missing from your backups.
Hi @Vadim,
Thanks for the insight, the 60K album library is the 20TB, but I’ll confirm properly soon. I also realised the other day that the Roon library disk also contains a folder of radio program files.
BTW These libraries are temporary while I’m waiting for my SSDs to be replaced under warranty, there were 4 SSDs in my OWC express 4M2 enclosure 3 of which fried. This was my Roon library which I’m planning to reinstate after they’re returned and I copy one of the libraries back to the SSDs.
Hi @Paul_Elliott,
That context really helps, and sorry to hear about the SSDs — losing 3 out of 4 is rough!
The radio program files in the “Roon library” folder would also explain part of the discrepancy, as Roon would attempt to import those as tracks and group them into albums, inflating the count.
Once you’ve had a chance to confirm which storage locations are active when you see each album count, we can confirm exactly what’s going on and make sure your backup libraries are complete before you copy back to the new SSDs.
Take your time — no rush given the circumstances!
Ok I’ve finished verifying 3 of my ‘identical’ Roon libraries and 2 of them are similar Novus 20 63171 albums, 767131 tracks, Novus 14 62758 albums, 766888 tracks while my Lacie 16 is only 55956 albums but similar number of tracks 767342. So weird with the disparity of the number of albums while track count is similar across 3 drives. I guess I’ll have to call the Novus 20 the master copy and re-copy to the other 2 drives to see if they eventually match. Does anyone have any insight about using carbon copy cloner to copy Roon music files? Should I use a different method of copying the files. BTW I’m on a Mac.
Hi @Paul_Elliott,
Thanks for doing that verification work — those numbers actually tell us a lot.
Notice the pattern: your two Novus drives (both APFS) agree with each other almost exactly — 63,171 vs 62,758 albums. The outlier is the LaCie, which you mentioned at the start of the thread is formatted FAT32. Track counts are nearly identical across all three, so no music is missing — this is purely an album grouping difference, and the file system is the prime suspect.
Here’s why: for any tracks Roon can’t fully identify, it falls back on folder paths, file metadata, and tags to decide what constitutes an “album.” FAT32 handles things differently from APFS in ways that matter for this — it doesn’t support certain characters in file and folder names (so they get silently substituted during copying), it stores timestamps with less precision, and it doesn’t preserve macOS extended attributes. Any of these can cause Roon to merge or split albums differently on that drive, even though the underlying audio files are byte-identical.
Regarding Carbon Copy Cloner: CCC itself is perfectly fine for copying music files on a Mac, and it isn’t the cause here. The issue is the destination file system, not the copy method. Re-copying from Novus 20 to the LaCie will likely produce the same ~56k count again as long as the LaCie stays FAT32.
My recommendation: since you’re on a Mac, reformat the LaCie to APFS (Disk Utility > Erase > APFS). Please note that this removes all data on the drive and then copies the library back over with CCC. If you ever need the drive readable on Windows as well, exFAT is the better cross-platform option — it removes most of FAT32’s limitations. As a bonus, FAT32 also can’t store files over 4 GB, which matters if you have any large hi-res or DSD files.
Once all three drives share the same file system, the album counts should converge. And calling Novus 20 your master copy in the meantime is a sensible plan.
Hi Vadim,
Actually the Novus 20 and Lacie are both APFS while the Novus14 is Exfat, so there’s really no rhyme or reason, crazy eh.
Hi @Paul_Elliott,
Your two currently active storage locations are:
/Roon Music Library/Roon LibraryAll the disabled drives (Novus 14, LaCie 16TB, old LaCie) point to /Roon Library.
The album count difference between Novus 20 and the others is almost certainly because the folder names differ — /Roon Music Library vs /Roon Library. These are two different folders, so their contents may not be identical copies of each other.
Could you check on the Novus 20 TB drive — does it have both a /Roon Music Library folder and a /Roon Library folder, or only one of them? That will tell us whether the content difference is real or just a naming inconsistency from when the copies were made.
Hi @vadim
Just checked and and the Roon library on the 20TB is named Roon Music Library, there’s no Roon Library there. I think I just copied the folders inside the Roon Music Library to the other drives. The only other diiferences I see is that the 3 of the drives have a folder called Roon Imports, but not in the Roon library drive. It’s only 28.1 MB though. Should I change the name of the Roon music library in the 20TB to Roon library?
Hi @Paul_Elliott,
To be completely honest, because these are your local custom drives and libraries, we cannot confirm exactly how the content or folder structures have been modified across your different backups. Since you have customized these folder names and locations yourself, the best approach is to manage that structure in a way that makes sense for your own organization.
If you are looking to align them, here is the technical perspective on what you are seeing:
/Roon Music Library and /Roon Library as two distinct storage locations. If those folders contain different content—or if one was a partial copy of the other—Roon will naturally report different album counts because it is scanning different sets of data.