Nucleus connected to Mac Mini?

I’ve been running my Roon Core on a Mac Mini. The Mini is a 2014 model, Intel I5 with 16 GB RAM and a 1 TB fusion drive (where I store my main music library, which Roon watches for new entries). Backup is to a USB drive. I run the Mini via USB-B to a Peachtree Nova 150, which is wired to Totem Arro speakers in my living room (which has no hardwire ethernet, only WiFi). I’m pretty happy with the SQ and (for the most part) with the functionality, although it’s hard for anyone else but me to control (which I usually do from a MacBook via WiFi).

The Mini currently runs headless, but sits beneath a television + Apple TV. I’m now thinking I’d like to connect the Mini to the TV and a keyboard, then move the Core off to a co-located Roon Nucleus (to isolate the music server from other computer functions). Before I do this I’d like to explore any potential migration “gotchas” (and avoid breaking anything that now works). Most related posts/topics I’ve seen involve replacing the Mini with a Nucleus, not using the two together.

To connect the Nucleus to the Internet, can I simply run an ethernet cable from it to the Mini (using the Mini as a bridge to WiFi)? Then have the new Roon Core watch the existing ~1000 track library on the Mini? Is there any reason why this might not work well?

The objective, basically, is to preserve existing functionality and SQ while separating the Mini from the music server.

Hello @Tom_K,

Just to make sure I’m understanding you right here, you want to change your Core from your Mac Mini to the Nucleus and keep your Mac Mini as a Roon Remote, but leave the Core functionality to the Nucleus?

If that is your intended objective here, I would suggest you take a look at our Migration Docs and ways to Preserve your Edits.

I would also make sure to have regular Backups set in place and properly share your OSX library according to the instructions in this thread (Nucleus+ is visible on network only via USB-Ethernet adapter).

As for connecting the Mac Mini as a Bridge to WiFi, I have not heard of any users do that, so I can’t confirm if it would work but theoretically it is possible, although for best performance I would always suggest keeping the Nucleus hardwired to your router via Ethernet or an unmanaged switch.

Thanks,
Noris