Longtime user, first time questioner!
I’m thinking of moving from an i7 SonicTransporter (circa 2015) to a Mac Mini as Roon Core and would sincerely appreciate any thoughts/feedback/guidance. My library is on the bigger side…about 350k tracks and growing.
Is there a benefit to upgrading to 16gb (or even 24gb) of RAM?
An M2 Pro (vs an M2) wouldn’t give me much benefit? If I’m understanding correctly, the M2 Pro bump is mostly around graphics and primarily for that type of content creation?
Is the 256 gb SSD enough, or should I bump that up? (Library is stored on a Synology NAS.)
My system is pretty simple. Roon Core device feeds a Mytek Brookyn Bridge (DAC/streamer) and/or a Lumin P1 (dac/streamer) via Ethernet, pulling the data from a Synology NAS, which backs up to another Synology NAS. I’m not currently adding any DSP, but may in the future.
Thank you John. Much appreciated. Gut was that 256gb would be fine for the SSD…couldn’t think how there’d be a lot of file swapping or something else going on, but wasn’t sure.
For your information: there are some caveats with the Mini M2 256GB SSD. As far as I know Roon uses the internal SSD to store the internal database and index files so there actually will be a lot of file i/o on the internal SSD. I don’t know if it matters much in Roon’s case, but still… Maybe a M1 Mac Mini is also still a machine to consider (cheaper and just as good for Roon).
Even a slower SSD is going to be WAY faster than anything that Roon will need speed for. I have a 2014 Mini with a 256GB internal SSD with a pretty large file library on an external USB SSD and it works just fine.
What I meant to say is that a Mini with a M1 will probably be just as good for Roon, with a bonus of a faster SSD and probably cheaper than the M2. Just adding an option to consider…
I asked a similar question as above about what level of M2 Mac mini is ‘required’. As one who generally would recommend higher RAM, it helps to consider about use case and how technology changes. On the other hand, I am tired of overbuying computers for no real need.
Roon seems to work fine on the base 8GB unified memory and 256 GB Storage. I would suggest having the music stored on an external drive. For 500 dollars (on sale) I was willing to give the base model a try.
After running 3 devices simultaneously (2 with 256 DSD upsampling and 1 directly connected with Max PCM upsample), it was up to the task with headroom to spare. If I understand the Activity monitor correctly, about and 8th of CPU and 3GB unified memory for processing that load. I would usually only use 1 device at a time and for multi-room, there isn’t much need for upsampling for background listening.
In conclusion, I don’t currently find any need to spend hundreds more on headroom that may or may not be of any consequence or use. Roon works fine and computer is silent. I could be missing something about why more RAM (double or quadruple) is needed for a large library versus what is already included. I am mainly streaming from Tidal and/or using roughly a Terabyte of DSD content on an external SSD. Adding more unified memory may increase the longevity of the computer with macOS updates if they are process and data intensive. By the time this occurs, one is likely already shopping for another computer out of preference. I still have my other 2016 MacBook Pro, but it is taxing to run a laptop effectively all of the time for a Roon Server. Gets hot, fan ramps up event with 16 GB RAM.
How many tracks again? I’m actually on the market for a new core. I still have my 2014 Mac Mini with SSD added to it, it’s the base model and it works well but obviously chugging along. I have 125k tracks and that Mac mini has 4gb of ram.
Oh man. I’m definitely considering going with base model. That would be very easy to acquire but 16gb would be still be option but mostly be used only for roon.
