This is provided as requested above by @Mark_Sealey. At least, I think this is what was requested. I had to put this together for someone else, so I’ll just copy it here. My original writeup had screen shots, but those aren’t easily transferred to the forum. Hopefully the text alone is enough.
Setting up an Network Share folder for Roon Backups
Instructions are based on MacOS Sonoma 14.2.1
In a perfect world, one could connect a small SSD drive to a machine running Roon Core (e.g., Roon Nucleus) and use that drive for backups, but for some Roon devices, e.g., Grimm MU2 with its read-only USB port, that may not be possible.
It’s always best practice to backup Roon to a device separate from the device running your Roon Core. If the Roon Core device were to have a catastrophic failure, you’ll also lose your backups, along with your meticulously curated music library.
Note that with the following instructions, If you have a Mac on the network that is running all the time, such as a desktop Mac, you can set Roon for automatic backups on a scheduled basis using this method. But, if you have a MacBook that is not constantly open and running, you should initiate backups manually. If you do backup manually, you should keep an eye on the backup folder, as older backups will not automatically be purged. (!)
On the Mac targeted for backups, use Finder to create a new folder for Roon backups. In this case, I’ll use a folder called RoonBackups2 on the Desktop. (Full path: Macintosh HD/users/Rob/Desktop/RoonBackups2)
Under System Settings → General → Sharing, toggle File Sharing on.
Now, click the “i” button next to the toggle on the File Sharing line.
Ensure that File Sharing: On is displayed.
Click the + under Shared Folders, then select the RoonBackups2 folder to add to the list of shared folders.
Very important: Click Options…, then toggle Share Files and Folder using SMB to On. Under Windows File Sharing, ensure that your username is entered and checked on, and that you’ve entered your password for that username. If you omit this step, Roon will not be able to connect to the shared folder.
Go to System Settings → WiFi and next to your network name, click Details.
Determine your IP address for the Mac where you’ll be backing up, in this case it’s 192.168.1.149. Perhaps write it down.
In Roon → Settings → Backups, choose Backup Now by clicking the Backup button on the right side.
On the Manual Backup screen, click Select Location
Click + Add Network Share
For Add Network Share, enter \\192.168.1.149\RoonBackups2. Alternatively, you can use the syntax smb://192.168.1.149/RoonBackups2. Provide the username on the Mac, along with your password. (Remember to use your IP address, username, and password.) Click Add network share
After a moment, you should see the new Network Share folder displayed as a possible backup location.Highlight the new folder and click Select This Folder and follow prompts to begin your backup.
After backing up, use Finder to select the new folder and ensure that Roon has placed backup files in that location.
When I did this for the first time in November (Nucleus, ‘Black Friday’), I had so many other configurations with Roon (which had just changed architecture to ‘client-server’ etc), and deciding on a ripping schedule etc.
There was a very long thread here, where - as always - the posters patiently helped me through getting it all working. Working perfectly.
What you have kindly provided is an expanded version of what I hurriedly recorded when I did get it all set up. (I usually do make such thorough notes.)
Really grateful. A version amended slightly for my setup is now in my Obsidian ‘Roon’ vault.
The one thing that got me when initially trying this was providing a username and password on the Options screen. Without that, nothing good happened. I had avoided that because that screen has a warning about somewhat exposed passwords, or something like that.
We mods have no more power than you to get changes made to the Roon Knowledge Base. Every page has a feedback option - clicking the “Thumbs down” button brings up a feedback form. Please use this, or the Feedback category if the KB does not have a relevant article already present.
And for this particular case of help with SMB network sharing on MacOS, I believe the information above has already been incorporated into a help article. Admittedly, it is for adding a Watched Folder as an SMB share, but it is exactly the same process on MacOS as for adding a Backup Folder.
I concur. I read that piece in my attempts, but there was a part in the article that was crucial to success, yet not highlighted as being so.
For those like me who are not particularly network-savvy, or who have never activated file sharing before, little things can cause problems or confusion.
There is a warning about “Sharing files with some Windows computers requires storing the user’s account password on this computer in a less secure manner. When you enable Windows sharing for a user account, you must enter the password for that account.”
Windows? Windows?! I haven’t had Windows in the house in 20 years. And being security-sensitive, the notion of storing username/password combinations in a less secure manner was concerning.
So I flipped the toggle to the right and left the account fields blank, and had no success.
It was @Geoff_Coupe who provided a clue about the path being correct, but permissions not being proper. Once that was cleared up, the whole process – in hindsight – seems rather easy.
Like REK says, “It’s the little things, the itty-bitty things…”
If those who do have ‘the power’ decide to incorporate the procedure that Rob records (after first testing it in their own environments), that might perhaps be useful.
Or if the FAQ on SMB under macOS for backup is ever to revisited. I say this because:
once back in Roon, the folders/locations to choose to back up to don’t readily correspond with the representation(s) of those which (will) have been just set up; and
the step to which I was kindly directed in this thread of mounting using a raw IP address appeared to be necessary in having external devices appear to Roon… pls correct me if I’m wrong )
)