Yes, that has some advantages, as well as disadvantages.
ROCK ~ Maintenance free, high performance appliance, dedicated and unflexible.
Win10 ~ Relatively high maintenance, but you could automate CD ripping with automatic injection into your Roon library, as an example.
Or run other music server software simultaneously, such as Minim Server or so. Similar performance though, only slightly slower and more power consuming.
A third option could be Vortexbox as a base on this machine? It’s easy to install Roon Server via the terminal and you would have the Linux stability and speed as well as CD ripping.
Just thought I would resurrect an old macmini2012 i7 server 2.6ghz iirc. This was an old server and had I had installed 2 x 265gb raid 1 ssd’s back in 2013. I thought why not split the rad and do a dual install…one ssd with Mojave and the other with Catalina…so I installed Mojave and that took a while off of Usb3 flash drive. Done.
Then I was looking for another usb3 flash drive to create the Catalina media and I found my ROCK installer usb…so I wondered what that would do in a macmini…
So held down option and rebooted…there was the Mojave bootable and a windows option. A min or so later I have a ROCK install done…one issue was I had to use a unitek usba lan interface dongle as the internal lan didn’t get an IP address. Other issue is it can’t select to restart using that drive as default, so restarts need to be holding option and selecting the windows option…but it can run headless after that.
Maybe if I removed the format on the ssd for mojave it could boot as a rock only, and maybe I could format the other disk for storage…or maybe ripping cds
You get cd ripping with ROCK to. I was using Vortexbox for Roon for a few years as I had switched from LMS and used it as my server for that prior. I decided to go ROCK on the same system but still kept Vortexbox for automatic ripping running in a VM on my NAS. Since they added this to RoonOS I ditched Vortexbox completely and use ROCK for everything. Yes I have the add metadata for use not in Roon but I am not ripping hundreds of CD any more.
So an update on this one as I haven’t posted in this thread since I tried the last bit of kit.
I’m using an HP 620 G3 as my ROCK host at the moment. This works flawlessly in every way, but then that’s probably because its spec (chipset, ram, drive layout etc) are identical to an official NUC.
The only difference being my I3 is a 7130U rather than a 7100U so it has a tiny little bit more horsepower.
Runs like a charm, doesn’t bat an eyelid when running DSP to two zones and is very compact.
HP actually sell a dedicated add-on module with a CD drive inside it, that bolts to the bottom of the chassis. Meaning you have an all in one mini PC that actually incorporates a CD drive. So I have this connected for ripping via ROCK as well.
All in pretty perfect.
My only criticism, is that in the listening room, with very quiet music, you can just about make out the fan whirring. When I move home, i’ll shove the HP into another room, and use a little HP thin client as an end point (fanless device).
Not very strange, but I have installed ROCK on my SonicTransporter i5 (bought about 3 years ago). I was having issues with STi5 not booting. Attaching a monitor I saw all sorts of errors. Rather than send back to Small Green Computer, I simply installed ROCK on it. (I only used the STi5 for Roon, not the other programs it also allowed.) I ignored the “BIOS” instructions, installed ROCK and copied the CODEC file and everything went well. STi5 connected via ethernet.
p.s. I restored a roon backup (1.7) and all was picked up OK in terms of my library, except Roon reanalyzed all my files.
Running Roon on my old IBM3650 M3 which is also running my Plex server under Linux. Cost me £200 with 2x3GHz hex core Xeon X5675’s and with the graphics card and RAID expansion to expand to 16 drives cost me less than £400.
Mr Fix it’s post inspired me to try this since I have a 2012 server lying around, as well. It worked exactly as he said. Fast and easy. On a whim, I decided to take it a step further. I took the hard drive loaded with ROCK out of the server and put it into an older 2010 2.4Ghz Mac Mini. It worked instantly. Loaded up into ROCK without using the option key.
Because it is such an old slow machine, I wanted to find its processing limits. I have to tell you though, I couldn’t find them. This thing handled every DSP option I could throw at it without a single hiccup. It was processing better than my other Roon servers (quad core 2012 Mac Mini and my 12 core Mac Pro). Clearly the “optimized” in ROCK is no joke. They let this thing off the chain. It is literally the only machine running Roon server in my house that can play DSD256 to my Chord Mojo without a single stutter. For the time being, it has become my primary machine and it was only $100 on ebay.
I raise my glass to you Roon, this ROCK thing is very good at its intended purpose even on an unintended machine.
@Papi_Chulo I have a couple of old 2010 servers might give this a go too…Im guessing if the only drive in the Macmin is Rock it will boot up without the option - My mini 2012 server has 2 SSD 256GB drives in it.
Did you need the external USB-Ethernet or did you manage on the built in NIC? Assume you are still on the 2010 unit.
It did have only one drive in it at the time. I was going to try having Mac OS on the other drive and, once booted into MacOS, select the other drive for boot. Then I would wipe the MacOS drive for music storage. We’ll see if any of that goes as planned.
I did use the USB-ethernet dongle because, as you said, I could get nothing else to work. Perhaps if I download some bootcamp drivers I might be able to get them into the ROCK system.
Still using the 2010 Mac Mini to see if it continues its error-free status.
So none of the above shenanigans were necessary for getting a cold boot into Roon. I put a 2tb spinning disc into the 2010 Mac Mini and it started right up into ROCK and had the new disc ready for formatting on the Web UI.
I did find one problem with using this old computer, however. If I have the DSP fully loaded with tasks, there is a 4-5 second delay in executing a new command. This completely resolves when I remove DSD upsampling. Despite this, there is never any problem with playback. It is always pristine. Seems to trade UI responsiveness for flawless playback. I appreciate that prioritization.
I meant if one of the drives has an OS X or macOS already bootable installed. I tried to install rock of usb stick with one of my 2010 mm server macs and it wouldn’t see the bootable usb to run the install. Maybe one day I will tear out the drive and install it on my 2012 i7 but as already run an i7 Nuc probably not much incentive.
I thought the 2010 would be out of puff with dsd…I use dsd as a stress test but find it’s not as clear as native bitrates oN most of my DAC’s
