even thogh I have a ROCK and everything is working fine, I had some database issues and after having to reclycle my library, decided to give Roon on my Snology a spin.
Even though it was obviously slower, it was VERY usable and not having another appliance working /consuming energy, seemed a nice thought. I even checked to see if the Synology was consuming more electrcity and even though the processor was suffering heavily (around 90% all the time), I couldn’t see any sustantial increase.
With the latest iterations of Roon, is it simply much (much much) more efficient than before?
Should I be woried anout the processor working so hard all the time? Could I have any decrease in SQ or just GUI responsiveness.
There was something “old school” of having to wait for the music to load, like when you put a CD in a CD player and have to wait for it to load. It was if roon was telling me to slow down and enjoy the ride.
I agree with this, though I think something else may be going on.
I run Roon on my Synology NAS, though I run it in a Docker container instead of the package. I also run a number of additional Docker containers and apps.
When I’m not playing music, Synology’s Resource Monitor shows my CPU hovering in a range between 2% and 4%. Playing to a single zone causes it to rise to somewhere around 10%. I don’t have the same latency experience you describe.
My Synology is a rack-mounted RS1221+, which is a pretty powerful device. Even so, your CPU utilization seems high and it might be worth trying to figure out if something else is going on.
If you stop the Synology package, does CPU utilization drop down to a single-digit number (or at least very, very low two digits)? If so, you can reasonably conclude that Synology is, for some reason, using a whole lot of CPU. If not, then try running the Resource Monitor app (in the app menu), switch to “Task Manager”, sort by CPU (high to low), and see if you can figure out what’s using your CPU. You might find that something else is going on. Or you may just have a fairly low-powered CPU that isn’t up to the challenge of running Roon.
Thanks for the feedback. My synology is a DS2419+ and as it seems with your comments, I should be able to be running roon on it. Mayne with a docker image it would work a little bit better? I tried having roon a while back and thought it was impossible to have a reasonable experience with roon and got a NUC. I’ll give running off the synology another chance then, keeping in mind the different resources hogs I’ve got running in the background.
Withouht running roon I can see since update to synology 7.2 a big increase in resources. I’ll check them to a bare minimum and try roon again
Running yes but I would not expect that one to react instantly or handle a library larger than medium sized. If I am not mistaken its CPU is an Intel Atom C3538, a quadcore with limited single-core processing speed offering no turbo. It comes as no surprise it reaches its limits easily while performing roon´s standard operations.
I had a similarly equipped Celeron-based NAS for years and replaced it a few months ago as roon was really getting annoyingly slow with growing library.
No. What the Roon Core runs on has no effect on SQ (with a possible exception of direct USB connection from Core to DAC if both are low quality and pass some noise through USB connection; but this is generally quite unlikely).
According to my experience with different home NAS systems, only the ones with the maximum of CPU power can compete with a Nucleus or similarly equipped NUC. And even the top-notch CPUs are not a great choice if you have a huge library (I tested 180k tracks and it is usable but annoying). Most of them are more or less noisy because of the fan. And the exceptions to the latter rule are basically just 1 or 2 different QNAP models. Which means a certain degree of administration is required due to their fiddly OS (regular updates and stuff).
If one can live with the aforementioned downsides, a NAS as roon core is definitely a solution worth considering. Especially if you take advantage like RAID and lots of fast storage into account. 4 bays 8TB SSD each - that got pretty affordable and it is great.
If you have a huge library (upward of 100K tracks, I would gather) and/or are doing some heavy DSP to multiple zones, the CPU in most consumer-grade NAS boxes would be too slow. Then you would want a PC (or Nucleus, maybe) with a faster CPU, more memory etc.
In most, certainly true, but there are some well-equipped models for a modest price, and RAM is not an issue anymore as you have either 8GB or can put in an extension bar. According to my experience, everything that has an AMD Ryzen R1600 or Intel Celeron N5095 or anything faster plus 8GB of RAM is doing the job at least on a Roon Nucleus level.
Heavy DSPing, DSD cross coding, Ultra-HiRes, multiple zones, 100K tracks - not a problem at all if you can live with some features reacting a bit delayed.
@DDPS i do not intend to take the downsides too seriously but they should not be completely ignored either. Synology certainly works smooth in terms of OS and administration but most of their models are underpowered. Qnap can be fiddly at times when it comes to updates and stuff.
I am running roon on 2 machines parallelly, one being a Silent NAS, the other one based on a very powerful NUC. So I see myself able to have a direct comparison.
As you can see in the link to my longer post up above, my experience with my current DS 1522+ couldn’t be any smoother. I currently have a 2.1 TB collection of about 45,300 tracks. I sometimes play to multiple zones and use ARC, and my processor usage is 0-3% on average. As I pointed out in that post, music processing isn’t all that processor intensive.
I’ve been trumpeting Roon on NAS and sorta been the counterpoint to all of the naysayers on these forums for the past couple of years. I wonder if some of it has to do with my configuration?
I have 16GB of RAM (the easy part).
I put effort into selecting a high-quality-performance, dedicated 2.5" SSD for my Roon database (SanDisk SDSSDH3 250G) (still easy).
I made the decision to use SHR2, with two drives of redundancy, which not only provides better data integrity over time, but also helps increase throughput (costs $).
I also made the decision to employ true 802.11ad LACP link aggregation, which helps immensely with network throughput to multiple endpoints. (costs $ to have a high quality managed switch that supports this).
My music NAS is dedicated to the task; I have other NASs for other purposes.
I use DSP on occasion (most frequently for volume leveling on ARC and during gatherings). I have downstream equalizers (both digital in my RME-ADI2 and analog in my McIntosh MA8900). I suppose if I were using it for more DSP, it could be more critical.
Maybe because I’ve never NOT employed all the above techniques, I haven’t seen the downsides, even with a lesser DS918+?
Presuming that a lot of audiophiles don’t like to EQ things all that often, I feel that DSP performance fears are tossed around more than necessary for most users, and Roon on NAS should not be overlooked for most people. Anecdotally, I see plenty of issues with people using non-NAS platforms in here while I hum along perfectly well. I think people need to give Roon on NAS its due. It’s not a secondary platform. As I state in “A Roon on (Synology) NAS primer,” the combination of features it offers is unparalleled vis a vis other platforms for a lot of people with a primary interest in local (non-streaming) collections like me.
The concept of RAAT (Roon advanced audio transport) should be ensuring that there is no difference in sound quality if only a proper roon ready device is used. That might not be ensured if one uses a local output of the NAS itself (via USB, HDMI or alike) but with Synology that is not really a case. I do use the HDMI of my Qnap regularly and it works great.
Heavy DSPing for multiple zones should also not mean a big problem for the aforementioned well-equipped NAS. I tested multiple zones simultaneously playing really chunky streams like DSD256, Multichannel-DSD64, heavy EQing and stuff. Except from applying EQ and DSP on native DSD without cross coding to PCM I did not notice any problems and CPU usage is still moderate.
That’s what I thought too !
but…
I have at home two Roon hardware solutions (RAAT) :
1.- Nuc-I3-Rock (Core) + Synology DS923 (DB)
2. - «all in one» Synology DS923 (Core & DB)
on a technical level, both work perfectly well (even for DSD64>PCM transcoding for example)
but solution 1 (Nuc+DS923) gives a better musical result (transparency, clarity, etc.)
am I the only one to notice this?
is there a technical explanation?
For the most part yes, but if I have an originally DSD256 track that is being converted to PCM for DSP and then back to DSD, my 1522+ (R1600 with 24GB RAM) runs out of memory quite happily and the CPU is pegged. For everything else it is fine though.
No.
That’s not how digital audio works, there is no mathematical or physical way that could make any difference. Psychology is a powerful thing though. Unless you have done a blind ABX test with somebody else switching cores and could tell the difference reliably, it’s all just hearing what you want to hear.
