Extremely slow HDD access on Roon ROCK NUC affecting playback (ref#90WHPJ)

[vessmier (Joona Vessmier)]

What best describes your playback issue?

· Music doesn't start when I press "Play"

What type of Zone is affected by this problem?

· *All of my Zones* are affected.

Does the issue affect all file formats?

· The issue affects *multiple/all* file formats.

Does the issue happen with local library music, streaming service music, or both?

· *Only local library *music is affected.

Where is your local content stored?

· On the same machine where RoonServer is running, internal drive

Please try playing content of a lower sample rate (44.1kHz or 48kHz), does this work as expected?

· No, lower sample rates are still affected

Do you have an approximate timestamp of when the issue last occurred?

· Past couple of hours.

What are the make and model of the affected audio device(s) and the connection type?

· iFi Zen DAC V2

Describe the issue

I'm running ROON on an Intel NUC (NUC10i5FNH // 250GB Samsung 970 Evo SSD, 2TB WD Blue WD20SPZX HDD + 8GB RAM).

After powering on my ROCK/NUC today I noticed that the internal harddrive access was extremely slow. ROON either wouldn't play tracks from my library (stored on the NUC's internal HDD) at all or it would take 10-30 seconds to load, then play a couple of seconds and then skip or stop playback completely. Qobuz tracks seem to work fine. Similarly, accessing my library via Windows Explorer either takes 10-30 seconds per folder access or doesn't work at all.

For the past couple of hours, ROON was busy with "background audio analysis" of ~26 tracks, which seemed extremely slow to me. It's now done but the drive activity LED on my NUC is still constantly on.

Is my drive dying? Any help is much appreciated!

Describe your network setup

Everything's connected to my FRITZ!Box 6660 with ethernet cables.

[connor]

Hi @vessmier,

Thank you for your post. We’d be happy to take a closer look at RoonServer diagnostics and see what they might illuminate about the drive health.

@vessmier

Similarly, accessing my library via Windows Explorer either takes 10-30 seconds per folder access or doesn’t work at all.

Logs do indicate HDD NCQ media errors, which usually means that the disk is experiencing I/O timeouts. Roon can’t read/write the information in certain drive sectors. If nothing is formatted incorrectly, this might be broader evidence of drive failure.

Please share a screenshot of the RoonOS web administration page. Do you see any warnings listed?

I’d make sure you have Backups created and redundant music library storage, just in case.

[vessmier (Joona Vessmier)]

Thanks for your feedback, @connor!

The admin page doesn’t show any problems:

Is there any other way to diagnose the drive in question and determine whether it really is faulty or not?

Since I’m not a very patient person, I’ve already ordered a replacement drive. Hope that’ll fix the issue. I’ll report back if the problem persists.