I did previously reassign the music folder locations, sees folder, but doesn’t add the files.
I’ve now done a clean reinstall (no back-up from previous Core) and Roon now sees my Audio Devices & Music Folder. I redo the back-up and it loses the Audio Devices. Out-of-sync is being caused with the previous Core back-up (if I connect to the old Core it sees the Audio Devices & Music Folder).
Don’t know what’s happening, but can’t use old Core back-up as it’s causing a network link issue. This means I need to do a new install and lose all my Playlists, Bookmarks, History, Edits, etc.
Steering this thread a bit back to its original topic i’d like to chip in…
While i agree with Anders and Ratbert about the ROCKs appliance-like behaviour i still prefer the NAS based Roon server. It has got quite a few advantages to my use:
Its my primary storage area for all things networked in our home. (Not just Music/Movies but documents, pictures etc.)
It’s available to all my software/hardware that can retrieve media from a UPnP/NFS/SAMBA service.
It provides a single Point of master storage that all backups and secondary storage can rely on.
It does a splendid job as a Roon server with its Intel I5 CPU and 16Gb of RAM, and that particular service have had to be restarted twice (i think) since install around august 2016.
It is one single box with plenty capacity for distributing movies and such simultaneously as playing music in one room. (Roon?)
It’s easily managed, by taking it down to sleep mode if i’m away for a while. WOL revives it in about 15seconds. (All via the QNAP Manager app on the iPad)
I’m sure there are more points that can be made and i do see that my use case is not everyones. I wouldnt dismiss it in any case.
BTW, my TS-470 Pro was bought second hand, have also had its I3 processor changed for an i5 and its RAM extended to 16Gb (of which i’ve never seen more than 2Gb being used…) It is in the process of having its spinning drives replaced by three WD Red 6Tb drives in a RAID5 config. (from the three 3Tb in RAID0 today) as the new Seagate Pro drives proved to be less reliable than necessary. (bad blocks)
I have my DS916+ playing music just now and it sounds excellent. One thing I did notice that the processing speed has jumped from typical 2 / 3 x with my Antipodes DS, to 10 / 11 x with the DS916. Now the DS doesn’t have any fancy CPU (Intel Pentium N3710 Quad-Core at 1.6 GHz), and has 8Gb Ram.
I have 4 x 8Tb Red HHD’s set-up with Synology SHR btrfs. Now is this the best RAID to use???, but what I read it gives the best back-up for data (appreciate a NAS isn’t back-up, but you know what I mean).
The newer low powered Intels are really great number crunchers, and i have bought a barebone MB for trying out Another ROCK-install. Dual core 2.0-2.5Ghz at 10W? Thats great!
About the RAID choice, i cannot say, i assume that SHR is a proprietary Synology lingo for a RAID5 with spare? I never rely on data on a RAID-set, whether it is a 10, 1 or 5. To me RAID is a performance enhancer, but due to the recent issues i had with the Seagate drives i figured i’d go for a RAID5 this time.
It’s not that much fun to restore 8Tb of data…
Actually I didn’t get it properly sorted, just moved my issue to the support area (still waiting for them to get back to me). I can only get the NAS to work if I do a clean Roon Core install, but if I do a back-up restore from the older Core then no-go (can’t see my Audio Devices, or load my Music folder).
Agree, it’s not a back up, but it’s better than a single HDD being used for back-up. I’ve a couple of Thunderbolt Duo’s and these both have copies of my Music Files. Also have an external HDD with my music on this also (can’t be too safe with additional back-up’s).
Can’t believe how my NAS is handling running Roon. I’ve a library of 130k+ songs and even with a short delay between switching pages there’s little issue with playing songs (the odd small crackle now and again) - pleasantly surprised
Have re-purposed my TS-470 Pro as a Roon server. Reinstalled the QNAP OS + Roon on a SSD with music files on a 4TB WD RE drive, leaving two bays free (2 x 12TB WD Golds on order). Upgraded to 16GB of fast RAM (C9), leaving the stock i3-3220 in for now. Roon seems to max out at 10-11% of CPU and performance is snappy for now… kinda hoping not to have to pull out the processor (lots of small screws in the QNAP), but am keeping an eye out for an i7-3770T just in case. Only ~300 albums on Roon so far but many more to come once the metadata has been tidied up.
It’s a great machine and you can do all kinds of DSPing before the stock CPU maxes out. The biggest gain with installing a T-class i5/i7 is the lowered power consumption/heat! I dont notice much difference with the i5 3470T i installed, it’ll easily do DSD256 without glitches. And library experience is as snappy as one can want, even with over 100K tracks.
Yeah I’d prefer not to risk over-taxing the passive CPU cooling, so the T is the way to go.
Also swapped in a Noctua fan at the back of the case, although the stock fan is decent. Reduction in noise is only marginal, but the Noctua doesn’t seem to crank up anywhere near as readily in warm weather.
Equipment that were ment to play music are either plain analogue set-ups or media-server. A NUC wasn’t built to play music either in the first place. In contrast, a modern NAS is built to act as a media server. Check the web sites of Synology and QNAP and read their ads.
My concern is not with the hardware but with the software.
A NUC doesn’t do anything. Windows or Linux (on a NUC) is designed to host other applications, such as Roon which in turn is designed to play music.
The NAS software stack may be designed as a media server — Synology’s site list their Audio Server, DLNA, iTunes, it presents itself as an alternative to Roon. But that’s not what we need. Roon is the media server. What we need is an OS and software stack that is designed to host applications.
Whether a NAS does a good job as a server platform is something that can be determined from all the threads here. Seems to me that people have lots of trouble, but that’s my view at a distance, I haven’t tried. Nor do I intend to.
This all comes from my conviction that the future is single purpose devices. A NUC running Windows is a general purpose device, but I made it as single purpose as I could. I set up a Roon box for a family member and chose ROCK (on a NUC), even more single purpose. And I have just switched over to a Nucleus, completely single purpose. As is my MicroRendu.
And in fact, so is my Synology: it is a Network Attached Storage Server, does a good job at this.
Your concerns were with the concept of hardware plus software. Software only works good in connection with the appropriate hardware. A NAS that is advertised as a media streaming server is able to do exactly that and it has optimized operating system software for that. It has everything it needs for that and Roon only needed to add their Server to it. Using Rock with a NUC comes with a whole operating system that does the very same thing as the NAS’ operting system. A NUC isn’t as power sufficiant as a NAS, it wastes power.
A couple of years ago I had a NUC running with a dedicated operating system for playing music. Didn’t like it. The NUC definitevely was not made for that purpose. I had a Rasperyy Pi and liked the idea, but not the hardware’s limitations and the software. For the last couple of years I used a Mac mini as a dedicated music server system which worked great, but in the course minimising my equipment park, I switched to a NAS. In connection with Roon it works flawless. The only problems I had was with a faulty RAM module which isn’t Roon’s fault. Of course you need to pick up a suitable NAS but you also need to pick up the right PC hardware for the same purpose.
You are nagging about something you haven’t even tried. That’s foul play. If you don’t like it, say so and don’t try to convince other people to not try it out themselves.
Sure, I’m clear about not having tried it myself. If you are happy with your NAS, great.
My views are rooted in a fundamental belief about the paradigm shift to single-purpose devices. Doesn’t mean the paradigm shift is completely through, or that it will ever be universal. But I believe in this shift, to the extent of making career and investment decisions based on it.
I am a very happy user of Roon on a QNAP, and would like to sincerely thank @crieke for providing this wonderful package to the community
I noted, in the description of the package, some reservations made about the ‘electrical noise’ of a NAS. I also noted some heated debates about the opportunity to run Roon on a NAS, but these debates were more on the theoretical side than on the practical one.
My question is: are there any users who have used the version of Roon Server on a NAS and moved to a dedicated NUC, for SQ motivations ? In other words, provided that the player is a well powered and isolated device, are there any concerns that the electrical noise of the NAS would be transferred to the player and pollute the SQ at the end ?
Intel NUC is a mini computer which officially supports running ROCK.
Re USB drives any external 2.5” drivel will work and if you have a music collection > 4TB then any 3.5”
2.5” is usually quieter. If your music collection is very small you could use a SD card or USB stick.
You can read about ROCK and which versions of Intel NUC is supported in the ROCK section.
I was thinking to upgrade my Synology 712+ NAS when I read this on Roon website.Don’t get it…If I’ll buy a 8tb external hard drive,the only way to make it network available would be through router.I’m not aware of any router optimized for audio performance.
“Roon Server on NAS
Why wouldn’t someone want this?
NAS devices are electrically and mechanically noisy, not optimized for high performance audio, and not especially powerful (for their cost). With the arrival of 6TB and 8TB drives, most people no longer need a multi-disk NAS in the home because all their music can be stored on a single drive, and less expensive machines for running your audio system exist.”
To me NAS are not just about having lots of capacity. They’ve become more and more about utilizing services and are easy to use and to setup (compared to a standard workstation that’d achieve the same thing).
For example, I set up a task to sync my Roon music library with backblaze cloud storage as a backup with a few clicks, can stream the same music files to my mobile, when I am not at home with the option to transcode the flac files on the fly to a lossy format to save data on my phone’s data plan. I have bliss running in the background to take care of my metadata and file structure.
You might say, you don’t need that and that’s ok, but there are different demands and preferences.
I am also wondering, wouldn’t a HDD connected to a computer add noise as well?
I need help. Migrating from a laptop core for Roon to a NAS since I think the Roon Nucleus is limited and expensive. Question is this is the Intel Celeron Quad-Core 2.0GHz, adequate ? I know the Intel i3 is preferred but everything I see with the i3 is crazy expensive and too many slots; all I need is 2. I also hate the fan idea. I’m currently running ethernet into Mytek Manhattan II DAC as streamer and my HP as core. I suppose I would run ethernet to both the NAS and the Mytek to avoid using the USB connect to the DAC from either the NAS or a Nucleus…?
Sorry, i’m struggling with this NAS environment but do want the storage and mostly want to dump the laptop.
Thanks
