@Johnny_Ooooops
Probably, I think, the Beelink EQI12 will work perfectly as a MOCK-PC, but only when trying it out you will be sure.
The advantage is that it has two M.2-slots: one for the Roon Core, and one for the local music library.
Depending on what you will do with it (DSP, Volume levelling, …) and the size of your local music library, it is also possible to go for the Beelink EQI12 with an i5-processor or even a i7-processor. Depends of course also on the difference in price (the i7 is $110,- more expensive).
Keep us informed if you will go for this EQI12-option.
Kind regards, Frank.
1 Like
I have done a change on my N150-mini computer “GMKtec G3 Plus”.
It has two M.2 slots: one is 2280 PCIe, the second is 2240 SATA.
It is not so easy to find a big 2240 M.2 SATA to use as internal storage of your local music.
Therefor I reconfigured the “GMKtec G3 Plus” so that RoonOS is on a small (250GB) SATA 2240 M.2 drive. Than I had the possibility to install a big 4TB M.2 PCIe 2280 as internal storage. Those 2280 SSDs are much easier to find in whatever capacity one wants.
And the Roon server remains very snappy, fast and reliable. No difference encountered compared to the RoonOS on the PCIe-slot and the music on the SATA-slot.
Now I am totally pleased with this “budget”-roon server. The “GMKtec G3 Plus” barebone is for the moment only $119.99 at gmktec.com !
Enjoy the music, Frank.
2 Likes
Remind us how big your library is, Frank?
These computers are too cheap! Thanks for the update Frank, and for the tinkering! My G2 Plus is continuing to run happily with an external $20 ssd enclosure and a 4tb drive. Enjoy the music!
Very cool. I did not know you could configure the G3 Plus to boot from the SATA drive. That does make it an interesting solution! Thanks for letting us know.
Hi Johnny,
My local database: 1600 albums and 21000 tracks.
Not the biggest collection on this forum, but also not a very small one, according to me. YMMV.
Enjoy the music, Frank.
In FLAC, this will easily fit on a 1 TB drive.
Not if a lot of the albums are High-Res. My local storage uses more than 1TB. And indeed, all in FLAC.
Enjoy the music, Frank.
1 Like
I’ve been running the GMKtec for a few weeks and works great. However every few days I have to hard reset the box. Hard to say but almost seems like it’s being shut down for some reason. I’m running it with ROCK installed and new to Roon.
Anyone else seeing this? Anyone know a way to do a nightly reboot? Are logs available to look at on the ROCK server via terminal or other access?
You can access them via SMB by navigating to \\ROCK\Data\Logs from a Windows PC or smb://ROCK/Data/Logs (or if for whatever reason your ROCK isn’t advertising its hostname properly, you can substitute the IP address for “ROCK”. If you’re used to navigating logs, there’s a lot of verbosity so they can rotate pretty fast and you’re looking for a timestamp that corresponds to things getting bad.
Hoping for some advice here. Could I install ROCK on the version of GMKtec Mini PC 97 device which does not have Windows installed? https://amzn.eu/d/fNrcwSE
1 Like
Sure, if the only difference is that one ships with Windows, and the other does not. Indeed, it is preferable if you intend to install Roon OS.
Bargain price, too.
1 Like
Thanks. Worth trying at the price I guess.
Installed ROCK and running well so far. Thanks for the advice.
3 Likes
i’m still wondering which one is best for Roon?
the N97 / N100 / N150 ?
anyone any benchmark or guides there?
@goat
I personally prefer the N150 “GMKtec G3 Plus”, as this one has 2 slots for M.2-disks. One is a slot for a small 2242-SATA-disk (ex. 250GB-disk). On that one I have put the Roon-software (ROCK). Be aware that it is a SATA disk, and not a PCIe-disk for this 2242-slot.
And then there is a second M.2 slot for 2280 PCIe. In that one I have put a 4TB disk to put all my music on (Internal Disk)..
This combination is making this the perfect MOCK, according to me.
Of source, it is not as small as the N97-minicomputer, but even that has some advantages (heat dissipation).
YMMV.
Good luck with you decision.
Be aware that none of those Nxxx-minicomputers will be able to directly feed a DAC via USB. You always will need aa bridge (ex. RoPieee on a Raspberry Pi).
Greetings, Frank.
Why not. Mine does.
Not Mock however. Audiolinux instead with Roon on top.
Sorry, I mean a GMKtec minicomputer when using ROCK. It is not the processor-type which is in fault, but apperently GMKtec is using USB-chips of which no driver are included in the ROCK-software.
If you are using another OS, this may indeed be different.
My mistake.
Kind regards, Frank.
+1 for the G3plus N150. I have it running as RoonServer on a DietPi installations without problems. Super snappy response, quite and doing PCM convolution with 1% cpu usage. DAC direct via USB works as well.
I wouldn‘t go for the smaller G2plus or G5 version although it offers DDR5 RAM over DDR4 in the G3plus. But the 12 GB RAM is soldered to the board in the smaller ones and shares memory with the GPU. Not so in the G3plus, meanimg you can upgrade RAM anytime you like with a standard DDR4 SO-DIMM.
2 Likes
I use an N100 but if you have the option of an N150 the extra couple of GHz on boost will always come in useful.
NB. I don’t use a GMtek machine. Rather, I purchased a fanless generic N100 from AliExpress that works a charm - search under “XCY Official Store”
I am having an issue using an RME ADI-2 PRO dac with a GMKtec Mini PC N97 , and I am running out of ideas.
Let me first describe give examples of what is working, and then describe the problem.
- The combo GMKtec Mini PC N97 (running Audiolinux as OS) and Audirvana Origin plays fine with the RME ADI-2 PRO dac. So in principal at hardware level it is (should be!) fine.
- I played Roon on the GMKtec Mini PC N97 to different Roon endpoints on the local network, all working fine.
- I connected the RME ADI-2 PRO dac to my main Roon server (also Audiolinux) via USB, and it became immediately available as audio output, and played nice.
Now the problem I am facing:
Connecting the RME ADI-2 PRO dac to the GMKtec Mini PC N97 via usb, the dac does not show as available audio zone in Roon. I have powered off/on several times, tried different usb cables/ports, all to no avail.
The dac itself on its display shows the identical information whilst starting up, as when connected to my main server.
And as stated in case 1, Audirvana Origin is playing perfectly fine.
These are the audio zones I do see
Anyone any idea what else I can try to make the RME ADI-2 PRO show up?