My elderly Mac mini is getting long in tooth and slowly creaking toward boat anchor status.
I’d like to build a NUC to run ROCK. I have several SSD drives already in my parts bin, so I need to buy all the NUC components, but without the HDD.
I have a LOT of music in my library (currently exceeding 4TB & still growing) so I’d want the equivalent of a Nucleus +. Suggestions?
ROCK limits you to a single drive, but you can buy a 8Tb SSD (at a price) so that would cover you.
The nucleus plus is a 7th gen 4 core CPU.
So anything over that:-
8 gen i5 or i7
10 gen i5 or i7
Will give you more cpu.
More recent NUCs are not supported, so you probably need to look on the used market.
Akasa fanless cases will give you a silent machine if you want that.
(If you’re in the UK I have a couple for sale).
ROCK (on a NUC) uses an M2 drive for the OS and Roon database, and optionally a SATA drive for music files. You can add additional external USB music drives. See the ROCK and install instructions.
I use an M2 SSD for the ROCK OS and a SATA SSD for my library. Its quite handy having the 2 separate and works really well. I like that I don’t have to use an external drive to keep things neat and tidy.
My NUC is i7 but I don’t think it really needs to be.
Hmm, don’t know what you mean by this. That, apart from a USB drive, is the only way ROCK will let you set up its drives.
Maybe I’m just misunderstanding your phrasing.
NUC10i7FNH - tall version allows an extra 2.5" drive inside. I have a 4tb SSD with music in it.
Performance is way better than my fully stacked 2012 i7 mini running Roon exclusively.
Hi guys i buy a resale Intel nuc with default windows installation not activated can I change away the nvme m2 and ssd to a new 1 and install rock without issue ?
Or just let the ROCK reformat and overwrite the Windows installation on the existing NVMe M.2 SSD.
What did the NUC come with?
If the Windows is legal and you could see that it is activated, you could just install ROCK on the hard drive. Next time if you want to repurpose the NUC and decided to use Windows, you could download the Windows ISO directly from Microsoft and it Will automatically activated once you connect to the Internet. Once a NUC is tied to a Windows 10 or 11 it is tied forever so you could reinstall many times and it will stay activated.
But, your stated plan is doable without any issue.
What about the nvme m2 and ssd that I use for 10th i7 nuc does it have a limit speed I can use ? Or I can even use the latest samsung 990 pro?
That NUC support NVME PCIE 3.0.
You could use newer NVME PCIE 4.0 or higher NVMEs which all are backward compatible with PCIE 3.0 but the speed is limited to the speed of PCIE 3.0.
Alright ty
What abt the ssd ? 2.5
The 2.5" drive can be the old-style spinning drive or SSD. Spinning 2.5" drive may have a speed of roughly 30-150 MB/sec. SATA SSDs are all limited to the speed of the SATA bus. Typical max speed is 550MB/sec, which is faster than the spinning drive. But, in reality for playing music files, even the slowest spinning drive is still “too fast”. So your consideration is budget vs capacity.