Hi guys, on the QNAP website, an i3 is recommended to run Roon. However, I only use Roon as a library browser and do all my upsampling with HQPlayer on a separate pc. Other than that, I basically use my NAS a storage device and do not do any other activities like video transcoding, etc. My current 5 year NAS works fine for my purposes but needs to be replaced because its firmware does not support hard drives larger than 2TB (yes its that old!). Given my use, I am looking for the lowest end QNAP that will still allow me to browse my library on Roon while still being responsive. The TS-431P2 would be ideal for me. It has a quad-core 1.7 GHz Cortex-A15 processor.
I can’t give you a specific recommendation regarding a low speed qnap NAS as a Core.
But I can tell you already that the TS-431P2 won’t work at all. RoonServer on Linux based system (including QNAP, Synology and all other NAS that i know of) require an 64-bit intel (or compatible) cpu.
The TS-431P2 has an ARM based cpu and is incompatible due to that.
You could only use it as a network storage device, if your Core is running on a different device.
I recently got a QNAP TS-453Be with 8GB Ram and it runs basic functions of Roon easily. Not sure of the differences in cpu’s of the 451 v 453 and I think the 453 is a little bit more expensive. I haven’t tried any DSP or up sampling but I don’t think it would be a problem for the simpler stuff as the cpu is not working too hard atm.
I did install a SSD for cache acceleration and another SSD for Roon. Then just 2 HDD’s for a simple mirror raid.
Whilst the lower powered cpu’s might run things fine for a while it is possibly more about how long before the demands of even a basic Roon setup becomes an issue as the software develops.
