Is this sufficient to be my roon core? Intel Nuc & LaCie external drive

KoolAde · April 25, 2021, 8:05am

Hi all, I’m new to Roon. Within about 10 minutes of signing up to the trial I realised Roon is a total game changer for how I can listen to my music. Love it!

I’m just looking into getting a NUC to set up ROCK on and purely run Roon, nothing else, and wondered if this would be sufficient:

Intel NUC DN2820FYKH N2820 Mini PC 2.39GHz 4GB RAM 128GB SSD WiFi HDMI

I already have a LaCie rugged 2tb external USB3 drive that my music will live on that will connect to the NUC. It’s not SSD.

I plan to upgrade the Ram as my library gets bigger.

Is the above good enough?

Many thanks in advance!
Adrian

Geoff_Coupe · April 25, 2021, 8:18am

The Intel NUC DN2820FYKH has a legacy Celeron processor, and it is below the spec that Roon Labs require for running a Roon Core. Please have a read of this Help article about ROCK, which lists the Intel NUC systems that Roon Labs support.

https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/roon-optimized-core-kit

KoolAde · April 25, 2021, 8:45am

Legend, Thanks Geoff! Will give it a read now.

Mikael_Ollars · April 25, 2021, 12:41pm

While Geoffs advice is good, there are many people who is quite satisfied with the performance of Celeron processors. And your 4Gb will serve just fine for starters.

What I’m saying is that your NUC most likely will do just fine for a small library and basic DSP’ing. And it won’t cost you a dime to try it out as your starter Roon Core.
However, this NUC will not support Roon ROCK I’m afraid, but you can install the Roon Server package on Windows or Linux and start from there.

And, Welcome Adrian!

KoolAde · April 25, 2021, 1:04pm

Ah thank you so much for your feedback Mikael. Super helpful. Means I can have a fairly cheap way to get started with Roon and when I’m more familiar with how it all works can upgrade further down the track.

Just checking that even though I will be setting to this up on Windows on the NUC I can still use my iPhone and MacBook Pro as Roon remotes?

Nepherte · April 25, 2021, 1:17pm

Absolutely. You may want to consider ROCK instead of Windows if you don’t plan on using it for anything other than Roon. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

KoolAde · April 25, 2021, 1:50pm

Thanks Bart! But now I’m confused because I’m now being told contradictory things. You say I CAN install Rock on this spec machine but Mikael said that I can’t.

Mikael_Ollars · April 25, 2021, 5:11pm

Sorry bout the confusion! I have a distinct notion that the Celeron NUC’s doesn’t support Legacy boot… However, i might be wrong.
Still, you wont loose anything by installing rhe Roon Server software on Windows to start with. If you decide. You could try ROCK on it later!
(Tje performance will be similar)

KoolAde · April 25, 2021, 9:10pm

Hi Mikael, Sorry I’m a bit of a noob with this. What is Legacy boot?

Jim_F · April 25, 2021, 10:00pm

I would not try to do Roon “on the cheap.” Probably the two most important things for a good experience are a computer device with enough power to run Roon core with no issues, and an ethernet connection from your router to your Roon core device. Spend $500 or whatever it cost for a NUC of sufficient power.

Geoff_Coupe · April 26, 2021, 6:05am

There are two modes in which the BIOS on an Intel NUC will perform the startup operation (the Boot process): Legacy and UEFI.

ROCK version 1.0 requires the Legacy mode, and this must be configured in the BIOS. However, some Intel NUCs do not have the option to choose the Legacy mode, and only the UEFI mode is available. Therefore ROCK cannot be used on these models.