Doug, this thread is super helpful. I’ve been going down the Roon rabbit hole and bought a listed NUC to use as a core. I tried to follow the install instructions carefully and just could never get the NUC installed with the Roon rock software.
So I am thinking of returning it and buying a Mac mini M2 to act as the Roon core. I’m tempted to get an 8 GB machine which is available for pick up. And cheaper than a 16 GB one. What’s your opinion on that issue?
Amazon currently has new M2 Mac Mini 8GB for $499. Amazing performance for the price.
Unless your library is over 100,000 tracks, do it with confidence. Larger than that, you’ll likely need more RAM
I’ve been running an M1 with 8gb for 6-10 months, and I have had memory issues with my 200,000+ song library. It needs fairly frequent reboots. Today I ordered an M2pro with 16gb hoping that this will fix my problems. Roon is quite the memory hog.
Did you notice any issues with 16gb? I noticed Mac OS uses about 4gb of ram and Roon uses about 1gb so ideally 16gb is what people should be looking to acquire if starting down the path of a mac mini.
So far so good. Roon currently uses 3-4gb on my M2 pro, with the total memory usage coming out at 10gb, I still get occasional skipping and lock ups, but usually that can be traced to endpoints getting wonky (roon bridge on other computers) and having to be restarted, or network slowdowns even though I have a 1 gb network. Restarts always smooth things out for a few days. I don’t think the server is a problem anymore. The frequency of problems dropped exponentially after going to the fast server with more RAM. I think the RAM usage is a major choke point. The latest Roon updates have increased reliability and reduced RAM usage by about .5 gig on my set up.
That’s great. You could always schedule a nightly reboot to flush the memory and keep things automated if you don’t need to play music throughout the night.
I would like to start using an Apple Mac mini m2 pro 32gb as a Roon server without a screen. I want to put it in this closed TV cabinet with a small ventilation opening against the wall at the back. I only want to use this Mac mini as a Roon server. Could this be in terms of heat? Or will it be too hot?
I do not know but my guess would be no issue at all.
My MacMiniM1 although placed on top of a low board never turns on the ventilator and my M1 is also hosting HQ player. So Roon alone is no stress for an M2 and should stay cool within the cabinet.
I’d also think that it will be fine in your cabinet, my M2 mini runs quite cool. I haven’t ever noticed that the fan has ran.
Thanks for your reaction!
