I purchased a Roon Nucleus that will arrive today. It has a 1TB drive in it and I was wondering the best method to move my music that is in iTunes on a Mac to the Nucleus. I do not need to sync the iTunes folder on the Mac so it updates the Nucleus if I add more music via the Mac. I just want to move everything in iTunes on the mac to the Nucleus and no longer use the mac.
I figured I would check the best method before just grabbing the whole iTunes folder and moving it to the nucleus over my network.
Have you read this article on migrating to a new Core:
And this article specifically covers the migration of your library:
Just today I moved my Core and library from a MacBook Pro to an older Windows 10 laptop I had available and the migration worked very smoothly.
I recommend you perform a backup of your existing Roon Core just before you make the transfer to the Nucleus, and use that backup when starting your Nucleus. I used a network connection between my MacBook and PC via SMB to move my files, and this is supported by the Nucleus. You also could use a portable USB drive (formatted as ExFAT) to make this a little faster.
You will need to create a directory on the Nucleus’ second hard drive (if it has one) into which you can move your iTunes files, or use a USB hard drive if the Nucleus does not have a second hard drive.
Just to check; is the 1TB in addition to the OS drive?
You need a separate drive for music files in Nucleus. It is not possible to use the OS drive for this. If there is only one drive in the Nucleus you either have to install an extra drive inside or use a USB connected external drive.
I believe the 1TB drive is in addition. Roon is running a special where if you buy a nucleus you get 1 year of Roon free plus a 1TB hard drive pre-installed for storage.
I do not have an existing Roon library or core. This is my first venture into Roon. My music is on a Mac in iTunes. I was hoping I could see the nucleus on my Mac which will be on the same network and drag and drop the iTunes folder over. I hope that’s the case so wanted to check. I also wasn’t sure if there was a best practices to move the music from the Mac. Move the whole iTunes folder or open that folder and go in a level and select all the folders in there listed by artist and move those over.
By the way the nucleus will have a hard drive in it for storage (it comes pre-installed as a special offer sale from the Roon store)
Thanks for the links to the articles. Have read a bunch already but I will check those out as well.
So is it ok to move the whole itunes folder over (that contains sub folders by artist, then sub folders by album, then the songs) to the Nucleus or should I move all the audio files over unfolderd. Or does it not matter and I am over thinking this.
I think that approach should be fine. I use Apple Music/iTunes to rip my music (no comments please …Roon takes the files pretty accurately as a starting point) and use its directory structure and naming convention without any issues within Roon after import.
You should be able to move the “Media” directory and all of its contents, or within the Media directory, the “Music” directory, as-is into Roon’s library storage disk or SSD. As long as you point Roon to that master directory from within the Nucleus “Storage” setting, everything should be imported into Roon.
…Roon takes the files pretty accurately as a starting point) and use its directory structure and naming convention without any issues within Roon after import.