I would like to receive your feedback regarding the below listed components to build a roon ROCK NUC server, any suggestions would be highly appreciated:
FANLESS CASE
HDPLEX H1 V3 INCLUDING HDPLEX NUC KIT
LINEAR POWER SUPPLY
HDPLEX 300W AS SOON AS AVAILABLE
Ethernet port for direct NUC to Sonore opticalRendu with opticalModule connection
Thank you everyone for your comments / feedback!!!
Current setup (Mac Mini to be replaced by NUC)
· roon control, core & output application on a Mac Mini Server (Late 2012), 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, Fusion Drive 2TB with UpTone Audio Mac mini DC-Conversion / Linear Fan Controller Kit (MMK) and UpTone Audio JS-2 Linear Power Supply and connected to an Apple Thunderbolt Display
· Sonore opticalRendu with opticalModule
· Questyle CMA600i DAC, Headphone amp and Pre amplifier
Personally, I’m not a believer in audiophile ethernet cards, so I wouldn’t bother with the added complication of the M.2 riser card and Jcat net card.
I also believe that because you’ve added these in, you’ve run out of connectors for your storage.
AFAIK, the Intel NUC only has one traditional SATA connector on the board. The other SATA channel is via the M.2 connector. Because you’ve used the M.2 connector for the riser board (instead of for a M.2 SSD card for the ROCK OS), you’ve then used the SATA connector for a SATADOM card to hold the ROCK OS. So my question then is, what does your Samsung 860 SSD plug in to?
You may be overthinking things? What dac are you going to be using, assuming it is a network attached device I would just get the NUC8i7BEH add 8gb of ram a 4tb SSD for music storage and an M.2 SSD for the os and db. You can locate the NUC in another room which removes the need for the fanless case.
I think you will find this an excellent setup.
THX Geoff, I might add the Jcat last… what do think about the SUPERMICRO - COMPONENTS SSD-DM064-SMCMVN1 SMC SATADOM 64GB as the OS SSD (the link should work now)???
You cannot combine ROCK with the dual Ethernet capabilities of the Jcat card. You have to go with another OS (pretty much any other OS!) if you want to be able to link/bridge the two ports so they are discoverable. While I know that the addition of the card can be beneficial, you will have to use it as a single port card.
In addition, you are trying very hard to get a NUC board to do more than it was designed to do. That to me seems pointless, especially when the case you want to use will accommodate a m-ITX board that will be able to handle a PCI-E card as well as M.2 for the OS and a conventional SSD (or even a large 3.5 HDD).
I’d either stick with a NUC (and it’s limitations) or get a m-ITX build. I use ROCK on mine but if you want to utilise the dual port capabilities of the Jcat card then AudioLinux is probably the way to go.
Well, the default location for the ROCK OS is on a M.2 SSD in a NUC. I think that some folks here have had the OS on alternative locations (look in the Tinkering section?), but it would not be a supported configuration in the eyes of Roon Labs.
That is a bit of a stretch Geoff. You can put it on any available SSD the machine can boot from, and I have never seen any suggestion that support is specific to an M.2 location.
THX Henry, on the JCAT website it says that the car is supported by roon ROCK…
“Supported operating systems: Windows (all editions) and Linux, works natively with roon ROCK”
if the link does not work… navigate to the shop—> NET Card FEMTO at the bottom is the comment…
Well, maybe it is a stretch - I’m naturally cautious. I just note that in the KB it states (with reference to the use of the M.2 SSD hardware for the OS):
Will ROCK run on my existing hardware? How about this other hardware?
We have only tested with the above-mentioned NUCs. It may work with other machines, but the drivers needed may not exist there. Try it out and let us know. We can not comment on whether any different hardware will work, as we have not tested it. We will not make any guesses, educated as they might be.
If you do manage to get it to run, that’s great, but we can not guarantee it will continue to work with future builds. Consider yourself warned.
I know all about the card, I have one in a m-ITX build running ROCK. In order for your intended end point to work, it needs access to the DHCP server and be given an IP address. ROCK does not support that part of the functionality. So only one port is used and you have to use a switch. I have a feature request to enable port bridging in ROCK.
Hi, you can get the price down by sticking to non server components. Roon doesn’t benefit from lots of cores. Concentrate on single core performance. My build is as follows.
ASRock H-310M-ITX
i7-8700
8gb RAM
128gb M.2 SSD
2TB 2.5 SSD
Jcat Net Femto
This will all fit into a H1 case (which I do have) but mine is presently in a Streamcom FC8 alpha optical. Add a power supply of your choice, I have a HDPlex 400 watt DC ATX to add. (Still in its box). My build costs came in at less than a Nucleus (not +). I am happy with the build. I have an optical drive and rip direct to the HDD, it all works very well.
Ah, ok. It is a touch dramatic but I suppose it has its relevance to us tinkerers if we lack experience.
@Andreas_Hahn it runs ROCK. I can upsample to DSD512 in Roon with a single core score of 1.4 and 2.4 if I enable parallelise Sigma-Delta. But I normally only upsample to max PCM X2 on the DACs I use.
