Strange it struggles as the Nucleus uses a less powerful set than an M1 Mac with 8g of Ram. Using a M1 with 8g and 512 memory and never an issueđđ»
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M1 macs have a very different memory management system but on a larger library I would still opt for 16GB Ram in an M1 mini - as I have with my 330K track library
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I use a MacBook Pro M1 Pro with 16gb of ram. I use heavy photoshop, files of 2-3gb in size. I have countless pages open in Safari, Capture One Pro, Lightroom, Roon controller and a few other programs running. It never slows down at all. I used to be paranoid about it⊠monitoring swap etc but stopped. No point as using swap doesnât slow it down.
When I look back on my swap usage history I probably use between 4-8gb swap most of the time. Even when I use a lot more swap it still doesnât slow down. Now, swap is using SSD space and the concern originally was that the constant writing/rewriting of swap files on the SSD would kill the drive sooner. Well, after 18-24 months of solid use (Iâm an illustrator / photographer) the life indicators show âLife Percentage Usedâ of the SSD is 2%⊠still 98% remaining.
Seriously, the M1 chips, MacBook Pro or mini, are designed to use swap heavily. The SSDs take it in their stride. The M1 with 16gb absolutely smashed the performance of a maxed out 2018 Mac min with 32gb of Ram.
Anyway, I find it hard to believe that running Roon on a headless Mac mini m2 will struggle to run on 8gb of ram. Hell, even if it used 8gb of swap, I know fine well that it still shouldnât slow down and the SSD will still last way longer than the rest of the computer.
I think the problem is people are still thinking back to what âUsing Swapâ meant when we had Intel Chips and non unified memory, cpu etc. The new Apple silicon manages things in a different manner.
I want to update my Gen7 NUC with i5 chip as I want to attach some drives and run MinimServer for my Auralic VEGA G2.2. So, like you Iâll tryout the base M2 first and see how much memory it uses but, if it uses around 3gb ram for a 50k library then I feel confident itâll last way past 200k. As I say, Iâm not worried about swap⊠those days are long gone.
Edit. I forgot to add I have 1x 28" Cintiq and a second 28" Eizo montitor connected to the Macbook Pro
I had to exchange the headless Mac Mini M1 8GB with a headless Mac Mini M2 16GB with Roon 170k tracks. The memory was fully used by roon on the M1/8GB, the UI had relativ slow start & search times and I experienced frequent sound drop outs for the high res streams/files. Since I upgraded to the M2/16GB, the system has enough headroom to deal with peaks (also for file serving and other system services from MacOS).
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Fair comment. Roon must ramp up real quick as with 45k tracks its nowhere near 8gb. The the only thing is use was Roon and all other services etc on the mac mini where shut down. Headless system with nothing else running.
I started this topic 2.5 years ago, and while I do not have a mega library (just 1400 albums) I am still using the machine in question from 2021 and it still works flawlessly.
Thereâs always exceptions, but for most people I would think this is a great option at $599 MSRP for a Roon server, especially if you want a dedicated one like I did.
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