Be aware that good quality used or refurbished NUCs with everything you need are available
at a much lower price. A Lenovo M93P is quite satisfactory, and readily available. A lot of other options are available.
I bought my nuc 2nd hand thereās a lot around already fitted with disks and memory.
Just a quick look on eBay
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Thatās a nice buy, now wishing Iād gone a second hand route. Just about everything I got and half the price of my NUC aloneā¦
Iām a cheap skate so eBay was my first port of call. I also have a Celeron nuc I bought as an endpoint which was so cheapā¦
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Agree. I am using a Synology DS718+ with 6GB Ram. Works and sounds great for me. I have about 4000 albums and run the Roon catalog off a USB-connected SSD. After the memory upgrade, it never comes close to reaching its capacity. Granted, I usually do not run more than 2 endpoints at once.
Iām using a QNAP TS-453A 8GB Ram with a USB-connect Samsung T5 SSD (for the roon database) and WD Reddisk for the music files, running Roon Server. My library is 48k and multiple end-points. I have not run into any difficulties.
I have to say I donāt use DSP functions and do not use streamservices like Tidal etcā¦
ps: processor is 14 nm IntelĀ® CeleronĀ® N3150/N3160 1.6 GHz quad-core processor
Hello Christopher - I just installed Roon Core on a Synology NAS DS720+ - runs a 4-core Celeron J4125 and I added 4 GB of Crucial memory ($16.-). At the moment the core is running on the spinning disks (WD Red). I plan to add an external SSD drive and reinstall RoonCore there. But so far zero issues. Running three zones from an album on the same spinning disk and performing a new backup to an external USB drive to load the system a bit. CPU utilization is running at 20%. Not running DSP.
So cannot distinguish performance running Roon Core on a 6-core i7 MacMini.
Worth adding an external SSD?
Hello @Christopher_Petersen
Welcome to the club: I run roon core on DS 720+, 6GB Ram, two 500 GB SSD for Cache and two 4 TB HDDs. All runs seamless and slick. Even backups and large files transfers while running streaming have no impact on roon.
Proper data IO needs memory and SSD power not CPU power. My music library is āonlyā 80 GB on NAS.
BR
Flo
Hello Flo - so far so good. Playback barely taxes the CPU, analyzing the library took somewhat longer than the 6-core i7 MacMini did (former Roon core location), but it completed w/o issues.(10,000 tracks or so).
I have 6GB of RAM installed - will adding M.2 SSD cache improve performance? The 720+ NAS is used for only data back-ups and Roon hosting (and music storage).
I do have an external SSD drive available - I may move Roon core there - worth moving music library there as well??
Iām running Roon core on a DS-216ii, which has a modest 2 core N3060 and 2 GB of ram. One disk is a 2 TB hdd, containing circa 35000 tracks (about 800 GB); the other disk is a 120 GB SSD, which carries the Roon database. The NAS is dedicated to Roon only, really nothing else. It runs like a charm. Before this I ran the core on a Dell i3 that is my desktop pc as well. It had more than enough computing power, so I dared to try the humble ds216.
Analyzing my tracks initially took 2 days on the DS-216, but after this, hardly any severe CPU load. Only the 2 gig of memory may need an upgrade, but a weekly reboot does wonders to clean up memory. Rock seems a bit dirty in the garbage collection area.
The reason for choosing a NAS, is the fact that the disk never stops spinning as long as Rock is running. I didnāt want to put that burden on my big movie NAS, and a NUC with a separate usb disk, mehā¦ and is more power hungry too. Besides, the ds216 was available.
Using DSP filters is, to my surprise, not a heavy load for the humble N3060, so I wonder why so many people think they need an i7 for Roon core. Looks like overkill to me. Perhaps DSD files are more taxing, but if Iād had those, I would convert them to PCM for general convenience (since I donāt own a DAC that supports DSD).
Other details: Using a Bluesound Node 2i, a Squeezebox Touch, a Squeezebox Classic (great that they are supported!) and a Tab S6 tablet is the cockpit. Streaming from Qobuz - works perfectly!
Hey Patrick - your set-up is interesting. How is the NAS set-up? Obviously not Raid-0 (not an expert here). But a combo of a classical HDD in one slot and (smaller) SSD in the other slot is intriguing. We use the NAS to hold photos, Time Machine backup and music. I back up the NAS onto an external USB disk, so Raid may not that critical for me. Right now running Roon core and data base on an external SSD through USB-C, but Roon does not always reboot on external drive after NAS reboot. (NAS shuts down for a few hours each night; I assume this will clear RAM upon start-up?).
Hi Christopher,
Sorry for the late response. The NAS is setup in JBOD with two separate volumes. De SSD is of course for the application and the Roon database; the spinning disk only contains music. The NAS is dedicated to Roon, but iāve added Minim UPnP server for supporting other music players and so far they donāt bite. If it would, Minim shall go.
Initially the DS216+ had its original 1 GB of RAM (I mentioned it wrongly in my first post), which was almost enough, but changing this to 2 GB is a worthwhile investigation that gives Rock the room it needs. Iāve been experimenting with all three players simultaneously with HiRes content - that needs to be downsampled for the SB Classic, and it all works just fine. Only occasionally, browsing through āDiscoverā is a bit sluggish when all 3 players are active. So there is the limit for the small CPU (not RAM, not SSD). But normally I use 1 player at a time and that never limits the good user experience.
.
Note: A solid connection to the Roon application (the ācockpitā) is essential for a good experience. A āconnection lost to the Coreā due to a wobbly WiFi can give the impression that the Core is overloaded, but no, it is the connection between Core and client. This is quite critical; even a good connection via a repeater (giving extra delay) can hamper a good feeling quite easily. Better use a LAN access point instead of a WiFi repeater when using a tablet. No Nucleus Fusion X9 will help against this. ( I tested this by running Core on a powerful i5 - which gave the same effects when WiFi to the tablet was less than āgoodā).