I current use my Mac mini as my Roon Core. My music files are on an external SSD attached to the Mac. I’m getting an Intel NUC and plan to you it as my Roon Server it will be on another room wired to the router.
I do all my CD ripping on the Mac and wondering it’ll be ok to leave my music files where they are or will I need to hook up the SSD directly to the NUC?
You say you are getting an Intel NUC. However, you don’t state what OS you will be running. With respect to my comments below, I assume that you mean to install RoonOS via ROCK. However, please correct me if this is not your intension.
A RoonOS Roon Server can access stored media files on:
In the first two cases, the storage drive is (normally - see caviate below) available to other computers via an SMB share and so music can be added (or removed) using, for example, Windows File Explorer or MAC Finder
In the second case, a USB attached HDD/SDD, please note the format compatibility at:
This means that if you connect a HFS/HFS+ formatted drive, you will not be able to add or remove media files (or do any other kind of disk management) whilst the USB drive is connected to the NUC.
There are also occaisional issues with USB attached drives with NTFS format. If they are not correctly unmounted from a Windows machine, then they can become unreadable to the RoonOS machine (again not relevant to you perhaps).
So to answer your question, you have two choices:
If you opt for option 1, then your ripping practise can stay essentially unchanged.
If you opt for option 2, then you can simply move/copy your ripped CD to the USB disk attached to the Roon Server using the SMB share.
For a ROCK installation, the SMB share address to be used in Mac Finder will be one or other of the two forms below:
In either case, the USB drive will appear as a folder withing this location. You should not write any files directly to the ‘storage’ folder.
Alternatively, there is a hybrid approach. You can connect the USB disk to the NUC (as with option 2) but do USB disk storage management by disconnecting the USB drive from the NUC and connecting it to the Mac: I.e. Shut down the NUC, remove the USB drive, connect it to the MAC and then copy your newly ripped files to the USB drive. When finished, unmount the USB drive, connect it back up to the NUC and power the NUC back on in order to start Roon again.
Personally, I would opt for option 2 - because it means that the Roon system becomes largely independent of the Mac - but I am familar wit the use of SMB shares and networking in general.
Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I’m not familiar with SMB files sharing. Yes, I’ll be installing Rock on the Nuc. I prefer the idea of being able to isolate the Nuc so the Mac doesn’t have to be on constantly but also would prefer to keep my ripping setup as is so I guess I need to start reading up on SMB sharing from a Mac.
In either case, you can still do your CD ripping on your MAC.
If you use the USB drive connected to the NUC and use SMB to access it, I would:
I would not rip the CD directly to an SMB share - especially one that relates to a folder that is watched by Roon.
In Windows, you can create a ‘mapped drive’ such that you get a drive letter that maps to the SMB share and, optionally, this mapping can be re-created whenever you turn the Windows machine on. Using this approach, the use of the SMB share is much simplified - you only need to worry about the ‘SMB’ness’ once. A quick search on the internet revealed, for example, How to Map a Network Drive on a Mac which suggests that a direct equivalent approach is available on a Mac.
Edit: I found the link above, and many others using a simple google search for “mac equivalent of mapped network drive”
I think this is the way I need to go with my setup. Thanks so much for the detailed advice.
I do a hybrid approach. Much as you are suggesting. It frees up the main PC.
The Windows PC has my legacy JRiver system still active. So i need a copy of the library anyway.
My NUC has a 4Tb SSD internal. I rip, prepare etc everything on my Windows 10 PC on a 4tb HDD until i am happy then i sync the 2 drives with the PC as master.
I also backup to 2 other external USB drives, belt and braces so i have 4 copies
The bit I’m unsure of is mapping the SSD I’ll have on the Nuc to my main Mac which will be the main control of the core. Never done that before but as @Wade_Oram said, there’s plenty of instructions on the web. Just need to make sure I know the server address.
I would be inclined to use the host name for the drive mapping. ie. smb://ROCK/Data
However, it’s a good idea to create a DHCP reservation on your Router for your Roon Server. Ie. setup DHCP to always allocate the same IP address. Then you will know the ip address and it will not change.
DHCP reservation achieves the same as assigning a static IP address to your server - but with less probablility that you will get caught out in the future.
Keep the disc with your music attached to the NuC as long as it’s a format it can read ok. If it’s Mac formatted it won’t.
I tend to rip on my Mac or windows pcs and copy over the network to my servers storage. This way have full control to edit files and add metadata before committing to Roon.
You can rip directly from your Mac to the drive installed in or attached to your NUC. I’m not sure why people say you shouldn’t but I’ve been doing it this way for more than five years without a problem. Maybe I’m just lucky.
Because then one track after another will appear in the storage location and it can lead Roon to misidentify albums. Doesn’t have to be, but can.
I’ll play it safe and rip them to a drive on my Mac before sending them to the library attached to the Nuc.
Always best to as you may want to add or amend metadata that ripping gets wrong or misses. I find dbpoweramp hit and miss and always fully tag with MusicBrainz Picard after ripping or MP3tag if not in MusicBrainz.
Well my Nuc has been dispatched so I’ll be having fun tomorrow trying to get Rock installed and then transferring the core from my Mac to the Nuc. Assuming that all goes well, I can start on the network drive mapping fun.
Just make sure that any external drive that you are going to attach to the NUC is formatted as exFAT. Mac HFS+ journaling formatted drives cannot be written to by ROCK.
Already sorted. I’ve formatted an SSD in exFAT and copied all my music files to it in advance.
Also, remember you cannot use the internal storage drive for roon database backups, you need to do them to either a usb attached drive, or, a network location.
Already sorted. My backups are on an external SSD. I’ll also put one on a USB stick.
You guys are making things way too complicated. I see people unmounting drives so they can attach it to another computer, only format a drive using old technology, don’t write/modify data on a shared drive, and don’t rip to a Roon destination drive directly. No wonder some people think streaming is tough. It doesn’t have to be.
If I’m using a Mac, I’m using apfs, period! If I’m using Linux, I’m linking to the apfs drive and that drive will be like it’s an attached drive with all functionality like it would be if it was a locally attached drive. I’m using Time Machine to do my backups, and I’m ripping music to this apfs disk while it’s attached to Linux.
If using Rock, you won’t be able to do this, but if I’m using another flavor of Linux, I’m using Paragon APFS sdk to allow this to happen.
If If there was a prize for the most detailed answer to a user question about handling Roon music files, I would give your entry a prize in a heartbeat! 