Long term care for my NUC/ROCK

I’m currently experiencing an issue with my Roon database not loading and audio devices not being found, but Roon support is helping me with this elsewhere. Since this problem has now got me thinking more generally about caring for my equipment, I have a couple separate questions.

I keep my Intel NUCi5 inside of an IKEA nightstand drawer with the drawer opened about an inch for airflow. The back of the drawer also has an opening as well. Of course, I’m concerned if this is a safe environment for the NUC. After setting it up in this location a couple months ago, I’ve checked on it periodically and it never seems to run very warm. I think it’s fine, but if anyone else thinks I’m being an idiot, please let me know and I’ll take the NUC out. My girlfriend just doesn’t want to see the damn thing and neither do I if I can help it.

Second question is about the USB harddrive that I have connected to the NUC. Is there a safe way to disconnect the USB drive? I get most of my music from Tidal but every now and again I rip a CD to my laptop and then transfer it to the USB hardrive. Since the NUC is headless, I don’t have an easy way of going into its operating system and safely ejecting the device. I’ve just been manually pulling the USB hardrive out of it’s USB slot in the NUC. Ummmmm…is this dumb? Is there a better way?

I have 3 usb drives connected to my NUC running ROCK, to add music I rip it on my Mac and have the usb drives mapped so it is just drag and drop.

That sounds cool. How do you do “map” a USB drive? Dragging and dropping music from my MacBook without physically detaching the USB drive from the NUC would be great.

You can turn your NUC off with a simple press of its on-off switch. That is the safest way to remove a peripheral and your NUC may well benefit from booting up when new music is added. It isn’t fragile, it won’t break.

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This post may help, USB drives show up as well as an internal drive if you have one?

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Perfect response! I neglected to mention that I do turn off my NUC with the power button before disconnecting the USB harddrive. Good to hear this is sound practice.

Is it cool or super hot in the drawer? I have the same exact situation…but my drawer is cool.

The ambient temperature inside the drawer certainly isn’t “cool”. It’s a bit warmer than room temp, but definitely not “hot”.

The NUC itself really does not feel hot to me. Just a bit warm. Not even as warm to the touch as my Directstream Junior DAC or my Class D amps, or my Macbook when it’s working hard. I feel like keeping it in there increases the temp ever so slightly. Far from concerning. I just wanted to be extra cautious.