Realistically the only need for an SSD is silence and if internal a compact small unit as a Core , which a NUC will nearly give you . Data transfer rates we are talking about is irrelevant even 192/24 is so slow relatively.
I have a NUC 10i7 which has a 4Tb SATA SSD inside and a 5tb Western Digital USB externally mounted , USB powered . In use you cannot detect which is in use , they are essentially identical in use. This sits on my desk and apart from boot and loading files is essentially silent.
As @Rugby says, there are three M.2 slots; two for storage and one for the wifi card.
However, for best performance, Roon OS should be installed on an 80mm NVMe card. I don’t even know if Roon OS can/will use the second 40mm 2242 slot as Internal Storage for your music. Even if it does, the capacity of 40mm M.2 2242 cards is not sufficient for a decent sized library. Far better to use an external USB drive, or a 2.5" SSD/HDD mounted in the “H” model on the NUC.
Here’s an explainer of the different types and keying of M.2 cards:
Thanks Geoff, checking on Amazon, 2TB seems to be the largest M.2 22x42 SATA SSD you can get.
On the Intel chat, I did get the confirmation that you can mount an M.2 22x42 and an M.2 22x80 in this NUC.
At the end of the day, since the benefit of the M.2 ‘horse power’ is really with the OS, as many of you have indicated, regardless of cost, it is probably not a benefit overall to have the library in the M.2 22x42.
Hi, Richard, my migration was similar to yours but my choice was to store the music files in a Synology unit. The NUC only runs the Rock Core. I bought a second hand unit with i5 processor, 8Gb RAM and 256 Gb SSD (double than needed) for 125€. Roon is way faster now that in my Mac when searching the albums, artists or songs and the size of my music library is about 10500 albums and 140000 songs in FLAC 16bit - 44.1 kHz (I have about 100 albums in 24bit too). The size I´m using right now is a bit less than 5TB with still 1,6TB to grow.
Both things, the NUC and the Synology, are quiet and very low power consuming. Is easy to find Synology units at cheap prices second hand. Mine is a DS213j, for 2 HD and cost me only 75€ with 1 HD of 1,8TB and another of 1TB. I upgraded it changing the last one for a new 4TB HD for 40€, so my total storage space is now 5,8TB. You always have the option to upgrade if you need more space or if you like to have a backup of all your files. And you can use it also to have your own personal Cloud without paying for external services. You even can play your music on the move without use the Roon ARC App using the Synology App “DS Audio”.
If for some reason one day your NUC is down you always will have the option to run Roon again from your Mac indexing the music files stored in the Sinology.
Easy install and set up. It works beautifully. I have never heard the fan other than after I loaded all my music on the SSD and the ROCK was analyzing.
May be over powered… but like you I didn’t mind spending a small amount extra for the additional horse power.
