NUC ROCK server components

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.

I was considering the below server but more expensive to build and to run than the NUC…

  • Case: HDPlex H5 2nd Gen
  • Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SCA-F
  • Processor: Intel E-22XX
  • Ram: 16GB ECC DDR4 2666
  • OS SSD: SUPERMICRO - COMPONENTS SSD-DM064-SMCMVN1 SMC SATADOM 64GB SATA 6GB/S
  • MUSIC SSD: Samsung 860 QVO 2TB 2.5"SSD
  • Power Supply: HDPLEX 300W
  • JCAT Net Card FEMTO

OS: AudioLinux or EUPHONY
https://euphony-audio.com/euphony-stylus-operating-system/

Geoff, consider myself warned? Really? Is this really the spirit in which we share our Roon experiences?

Maybe roon Labs will enable the DHCP function when they support the new NUC9 with 1x PCIe x16 slot, 1x PCIe x4 slot and dual ethernet ports.

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.

Henry - that text is from the KB page, not from me…

THX for sharing your setup! What are you using as your OS and do you upsample and if yes how high???

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.

Hi Henry, how did you get ROCK running on your system… I thought ROCK would only run on a NUC???

No, mine works fine on a Fujitsu Q956.

ROCK is specifically written for NUC hardware from generation 5 onwards. But it will work on other hardware that shares the same chipsets. What ROCK does however is limit you to NUC capacity. For example you can have two HDD’s, one for the OS, one for music. If your board supports six HDD’ s you cannot use them all with ROCK. In actual fact, the biggest issue with newer boards is legacy boot mode. That has to be there to load ROCK. It was on my board at the time of purchase without me needing to update my bios.

THX Frank and Henry,

I am now evaluating the following setup:

· Case: HDPlex H5 2nd Gen
· Motherboard: AsRock Rack X470D4U Micro ATX Server Motherboard with Legacy USB Support - to run ROCK


· Processor: AMD RYZEN 7 2700 8-Core 3.2 GHz (4.1 GHz Max Boost) Socket AM4 65W
· Ram: Hynix 16GB 2x8GB ECC DDR4 2400
· OS SSD: Samsung 970 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD 512GB
· MUSIC SSD: Samsung 860 QVO 2TB 2.5"SSD
· Power Supply: HDPLEX 300W
· JCAT Net Card FEMTO
· OS ROCK or EUPHONY at a later stage

OS doesn’t need anywhere near 512. If you can go smaller, do so if a saving is also possible. Also an AMD chipset comes with additional uncertainties in ROCK but should be OK with Euphony or another Linux OS.

Though this thread is a bit old I would add that it is possible to use dual port Ethernet with Rock

See this thread: ROCK Dual Ethernet - Primary Port Not Exposed [RESOLVED]

I’m currently using this config in my Mock using the internal mother board Ethernet and an additional usb Ethernet adapter. Easy setup and works great.
I see no reason it will not work also with the JCat cards.
As long as Rock/Mock sees the 2 Ethernet ports it can be configured.
It won’t be dhcp and the device connected to the second port won’t have internet access but as it will most likely be used for the Roon endpoint I would say in most cases you don’t care - all control can be through the Roon remote.

Obviously there are different kinds of end points. Some you can configure an IP and get the core to communicate to it. These would be devices like RoPieee powered Pi’s and endpoints running ROCK. If you don’t need or want to be exposed to the internet that is fine. However most commercial streamers do not allow configurable IP’s and rely on DHCP for a working IP. This means they cannot be fed direct from ROCK powered machines. But you can with Windows, Mac and any choice of audiophile Linux distros. ROCK sits isolated in its inability to expose a second port to DHCP.