This could be the key. I previously struggled with the identical problem described by OP. A friend working in IT came over and sorted it out quickly. He said it was a Windows networking problem.
Many NAS have some form of RAID built in. This should protect against 1 (or more) disk failures.
I went for unraid
- with twin parity disks it would take 2 simultaneous disk failures to damage my collection
- The underlying architecture leaves the files in a non- proprietary form
- It also runs Dockers - in my case this is where the Roon server resides
The downsides
- another sub
- The cost of multiple spinning disks (although they can be independently spun down)
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Actually, I use SSDs on my NAS. I use HDD for files, music and otherwise, and SSD for programs and databases. ROON with its database is installed on my NAS on an SSD, I presume thatās much faster than installing it on an HDD.
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All good points but since it is Raid, then it should not be the only location of the data.
That was my issue. I had my music library only stored on a NAS. Not good.
Need 2 locations no matter what.
āMD
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Yes, off-site storage is via an (unshared) cloud.
- No benefit in additional local storage
And Unraid^ recognises cache disks,
- so mine is a fast NVME with apps, Roon DB and cached directories.
- (And other apps like Plex)
^ Unraid has raid-like features (as name suggests) but isnāt a conventional raid
- wasnāt trying to go down a technical rabbit hole
- or even push unraid (although I like it)
Merely observing that if the Roon server is in a docker on a NAS (which several flavours support) then some of the startup issues resolve
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I have an Asustor Nas with 2 x WD Red drives in Raid setup.
My pc tower runs with 3 NVME drives i did away with mechanical drives quite some time ago..so much more energy efficient , fast and cool compared to conventional disks.
My Intel Nuc also has an Nvme drive which Roon Rock runs 24/7.
I have a Synology NAS and I never had a data loss on it. I wish I could tell the same about external Backup drives or connected USB 3.5 HDD - external 2.5 HDD in general ok.
RAID on Synology is an increase in safety - not the opposite.
Baxkup drives that you never connect with px detoriate over time and have data loss.
True. RAID arrays with redundancy (typically RAID 1, 5 or 6) offer protection against a single disk failure (or even 2 disk failures in the case or RAID 6).
However, you should still have other, independent, copies of the data on your RAID system for at least three reasons:
- Multiple (near) simultaneous disc failures are not as uncommon as you might think. One issue is that, often, disks in an array are purchased at the same time and operated with the same duty cycle in the same environment and thus age at the same rate making simultaneous failure more likely than would be the case if those same disks were used in independent systems.
- There are a number of failure modes in NAS units that can cause common mode failures across multiple drives in a RAID array.
- There are environmental threats to data (and much besides) such as fire or flood that can only be mitigated by having remote copies of your data.
All data on disks, both magnetic and solid state, is prone to the deterioration of the media (although the timescales are different). In the case of magnetic discs, periodic re-writing is desirable but this does not typically happen when a disk is used for long term storage of rarely changing data files as is usually the case for media files or, indeed, the files on a disk used as the destination for incremental backup mechanisms extending over long periods.
All magnetic disks should be used āregularlyā to avoid certain types of failure. What āregularlyā means, however, differs. Enterprise disks are designed to operate 24/7/365 over many years and are more likely to fail if powered off regularly. Consumer drives are likely to fail early if left powered up 24/7/365 but are also likely to fail with too much power cycling. Thus, as with everything, it is important to understand the issues and buy the right drives for the intended application.
If data availability is important such that the time to retrieve data from a backup is a problem, then disks in a raid array should be replaced periodically. For example, I, with my 5 disk RAID 5 array, might decide to replace one of the disks after 2 or 3 years and thereafter one disk every year so that after 7 or 8 years all of the disks have been replaced and, from that time on, no disk is older than 5 years.
Such a plan also helps reduce the likelihood of multiple simultaneous disk failures because, once all bar one of the disks have been replaced, all of the disk are different ages and have seen a different duty cycle so the chances of 2 or more disks failing at the same time is reduced.
Finally, the subject of this thread is āNAS or local storageā implying that they are mutually exclusive. Personally, I use both. In the case of my Roon local library media files, they are stored locally on the Roon Server but they are automatically synchronised with a copy of those files on my NAS. Thus if the local storage fails, I can switch to using the copy on the NAS whilst I wait for a replacement drive for the Roon Server and, later, whilst I copy the files to the new drive.
I originally set things up this way because I used power line adaptors to distribute Ethernet around the house and, since power line adaptors are a contended medium, it thus became important to minimise the amount of network traffic. I did this by placing my Roon Server machine and a switch near the primary listening station (and, as it happens, my most used secondary listening station as well). Since the Roon Server had local library storage, this eliminated the power line link whilst listening to local library tracks and meant that only the traffic from the external streaming service to the Roon Server traversed the power line link when using Tidal or Qobuz.
These days, the power line link has been replaced with wired ethernet and the network in general has been upgraded so it would certainly have the capacity to support Roon with a local library on the NAS and thus the reasons for setting it up this way have much lower significance now than they used to but I still think that this strategy has some value - especially as some of my other activities are very demanding on the network and NN AS bandwidth.
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Well, I do it as follows. I have an NAS and an attached USB HDD and the NAS makes regularely backup of really important data and some old drives I never use have a backup of e.g music and movies.
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Chiming in hereā¦ NAS can be configured any way you want depending on your actual use case.
I have Roon server on a VM machine, which then has mapped NFS shares to the music directory on my NAS runnnig zfs RaidZ2 on 6 HDDs with 2 NVME drives holding special metadata for indexing, as well as a few SSD pools for specialized low latency applications (like security cameras). There are reasons to use SSD for your NAS - latency, aggregate speed (if you have 2.5Gbit or more bandwidth), power consumption concerns, but most people stick to HDD due to lower cost/GB or have hybrid setups.
That NAS (Call it the primary NAS), is then mirrored once a day to another NAS (Call ths one he Secodnary NAS) with a RAID0 mirror, and also a single external drive, which gets swapped out for another single external drive at the bank in a safety deposit box once every few months.
My NAS holds and provides the working data shares for music, video, documents, ISOs, archive files, is the backup drive for my network video recorder (NVR) for all the video cameras, also serves as secondary media refeence drives for AI object detection and facial recognition, as well as Ollama and other applications. All data is centralized on the NAS for data integrity and automatic daily backups.
The zfs block filesystem and the RAIDZ2 or RAID0 redunancy protects against data corruption (via parity) or drive failures, and the 3 seperate copies follows the 3-2-1 backup best practice to prevent against catastropic data loss.
Performance on mapped shares to your NAS isnāt a concern as the required transfer is well under even a 1 Gbit connection. Latency can become smoewhat of an issue, but usually isnāt. The most common issue is the network connection or the NAS going offline, causing the share to be unavailable, which causes issues. If youāre using a reputable pre-built NAS, or have a dedicate setup using an OS like TrueNAS, this should only come down to a robust configuration of the server, quality networking components, and having UPS in case of power fluctuations.
TLDR: It is fine to run Roon either way - with local data and with mapped shared drives to a NAS. Each have their benefits and drawbacks. Setup whatever works best for you based on complexity, cost, and importance of data.
Sounds good but can it run Crysis? 
Help me with the VM a little bit. I see the advantages of a VM but not here. Why a Roon server on a VM when (or if) the NAS natively supports the Roon server?
yes, yes it canā¦ 
Actually running Roon on a VM or as an application on a NAS is functionally the same thingā¦ Pedantically, running it on a Proxmox VM vs. a docker/podman container (which is what apps on NASes usually are), are technically different, but theyāre both isolated functional environments in which one or more services run, and the functionality to the end user is the same. Which ever one you choose can come down to how your network is setup, and what is the easiest thing to implement.
For me, since I already have multiple machines with spare compute power and resources, it makes sense for me to spin up a VM with roon instead of buy another bare metal box to run it. I tend to keep my NAS just for serving and managing files internal to my network, as running services, especially services which potentially can transmit data over the web (Roon ARC) potentially opens attack vectors to that machine. I tend to avoid this for machines which hold critical data (e.g. my taxes for the last 20 years, and every work email/work document iāve sent for the last 25).
Segmenting out services to differnt VLANS and specific machines which you can additionally secure, can help keep your data and machines safe.
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Ok, I didnāt know that. I thought the NAS has an OS running applications. Thatās why I thought it would be much slower and using more power to run it in a VM.
Butā¦ opening ports for ARC is dangerous for the whole internal network and not only for your NAS running Roon.
I have no planās using ARC. Outside of my home network I use Tidal. Thatāa good enough for me when Iām not home.
You are correctt, if they get into the container//VM they can use it as a jumping off point to other devices.
Thatās why I keep secured machines and interfaces on a seperate VLAN. Roon only has access to other IoT devices on another segmeneted network reserved specifically for IoT and unsecured devices. Firewall rules on my router drop all traffic from the IoT VLAN going to any other VLANs on my network.
No network is 100% safe unless it is not connected at all, but this type of segmentation gives a relative level of security.
I prefer simplicity and so Iāve configured a local storage solution for myself. No issues, ultra fast, ultra reliable, never a delay in browsing or playing music through my floorstanding speakers. Roon server runs on a Mac Mini M1 with a portable 2TB SSD attached hard drive containing my local music library. My wifi enabled Eversolo DMP-A6 acts as the ROON endpoint and starting point of my HiFi. All music is backed up daily to my Mac mini attached 2TB SSD portable hard drive using Apple Time Machine. Also offsite backup location for music and regular automatic local and dropbox ROON backups. The Mac Mini is silent and stays on 24/7 with no hiccups. Minimal power consumption.
Always good to see people using proper backup strategy.
Cheers!
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Is that in reply to me Gabriel?
I thought I had a ROON plug in installed on my Synology NAS which I thought was just so that it would talk to the NUC that has ROON sever software installed. However, there isnt any ROON software or plug ins on the Synology NAS, just server on the NUC.
Is there a better way to skin this cat?
I think this is the route to go. I think a 2 tb ssd rather is be internal or external and maybe upgrade the ram to 16 gb would be my more cost effective route.
I also have an additional PC i could consider, but it has a fan, so i assume that would create unwanted noise.
You need to download the correct package for your DSM version from RoonOnNAS ā Use your NAS as a Roon Core and install in on the Synology box.
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