Nucleus One questions before buying

Roon Software Discussion Nucleus
1

Hi all,

I’ve been running Roon Core+Roon endpoint on an older Mac Mini mid 2012, just recently like 3 weeks ago Roon retire support for Mac OS Catalina 10.x and currently the supported OS starts from Mac OS 12.x. That said, I’m considering to buy a Nucleus One device to replace the Mac Mini but before I have a few questions if you guys can help me out:

  1. Will the Nucleus One run both the Room Core and Endpoint on the same hardware?
  2. I have been using my Mac mini with a USB connected BEL CANTO U-LINK re-cloking device that works great and improves the sound that comes out of the noisy USB port of the Mac Mini and from the Bel Canto I have my Audio Lab DAC connected via Coaxial digital link. If I get the Nucleus One, can I still use my USB connected Bel Canto U-Link and will Roon recognize it?
  3. Most of my locally stored music is on an older Western Digital My Passport NAS, will Roon running on Nucleus One be able to recognize my NAS?
  4. How much have you paid for Nucleus One without an internal drive?. Right now is at $600 and theres an 11% discount linked to the 11th Roon anniversary so it’s at $534 before shipping. How much have you paid for your Nucleus One device?.

Thanks.

Dan

2

If you like Mac why aren’t you considering a newer Mac Mini?

The Nucleus is a PC running a Linux based OS and the same RoonServer. So, yes, it can play out it’s own USB port just like the Mac Mini. And, yes, just like a mac Mini, the One should see the My Passport, I assume this is attached through the network and if so, then there shouldn’t be an issue.

However, If the “nas” is connected via USB then, if it is formatted in Apples HFS+ disk format, Linux OS cannot write to (but can read from) disks formatted in Apples HFS+ disk format.

I don’t own a Nucleus One and personally wouldn’t get one. The One launched at a 499 price point which was later raised by 100 to the current 599 price point.

IMHO, PC pricing is only going to continue to go up as RAM and Disk costs escalate due to current scarcity issues.

3

Just treat yourself to a Nucleus. You deserve it. I did and have never regretted the decision to buy a dedicated appliance that looks beautiful and requires zero maintenance.
I too use a MacMini for other stuff but Nucleus and Roon are made for each other. Period.

4

I have a Nucleus one and I love it. It is very fast and cheap. My personal library is very limited.

5

Just remember that the Roon database processing requirements are the same whether the tracks are local OR streaming. So, not having many local files doesn’t mean much if you are adding 1000s of tracks to your library from your streaming service.

6

Thank you I did not know. I use Tidal and have maybe about 20 albums on a harddrive. Nucleus one is superb. With the VPN I can use ARC without problems.

7

I am unable to answer most of your questions; however, I will say that I used to run the Roon software on a Windows 10 NUC, it worked fine until they upgraded to 2.0. I bought a Nucleus One soon after launch, I suspect that in a few years’ time it will no longer be supported, but life goes on. I have a 4Tb SSD in the Nucleus which is 15% full of downloads and CD RIP’s. I use a Topping D90LE DAC is DSD256, very happy with the quality. I asked Gemini AI about your BEL CANTO

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Please do your own research; DSD64 is very nice too :wink:

8

Why do you think this?

Certainly from a hardware repair point of view it’s support will be time limited due to the availability of parts etc. However, there is no reason to think that the same is true from a software perspective.

The original Nucleus and Nucleus Plus were introduced 9 years ago and are still supported from a software perspective (although they don’t get RoonOS updates any more).

The Nucleus One (and Titan) should enjoy support for quite some time especially since they use the modern UEFI boot mechanism and so ate likely to be supported from a software perspective for a long time yet.

9

I have to agree here. I messed around with the nuc, rock, etc for two years and it was never the ‘turn on, listen to music’.
The Nucleus has been stellar, not one single issue at all. Updates are via the app, and I can drag and drop via my MacBook.

10

Exactly the same with Rock

11

Hi Dan,

I ended up in the exact same situation with my old Mac-mini and bought the nucleus one earlier this week. Happy with my choice (also using USB audio output) though experienced some issues with transferring my Mac Roon “account” to the nucleus one because I could no longer launch my Roon App on the Mac and had no back-up. Eventually found an older rooninstaller.dmg file on my mac, reinstalled the older version and made a back-up. Then restored the backup when configuring the nucleus. I.o.w. Make sure you have a backup and or disconnect Roon server on your Mac before you install the Nucleus. See also Login issue with Nucleus One due to old Mac-Mini's Roon session (ref#BAPLP6)

12

You can install linux on your mac mini. Just use chaptgpt an type in “Mac Mini mid 2012 install linux” for instructions. no need to dump this machine. roon server runs well and stable on linux. I run a virtual linux machine. Maybe you can consider to run proxmox on the mac mini.

13

Purchased a used Nucleus One six months ago after using my IMac as a core for seven years. The Nucleus transition was seamless. Reformatted my library to Exfat and installed 1tb SSD. Zero hiccups and my IMac sees the hard drive on the Nucleus when I add music to my library. Updates are quick and easy. One issue. In the event of a power outage, I have to complete a hard reboot of the Nucleus. Highly recommended!

14

Wade,

I use the original Nucleus and it’s been perfect. I seem to get all the Roon updates… are you sure they don’t load on my unit?

15

@Robert_Coppersmith

The Roon Server application (currently 2.66) updates fine on the original Nucleus and the Nucleus Plus. However, RoonOS (the lightweight linux based OS your Nucleus runs) does not receive updates anymore.

If you look at the WebUI of your Nucleus, you will see that the RoonOS version is still 1.0 build 259 as in this image from the Roon Help Centre image of the ROCK UI (The Nucleus and Nucleus Plus WebUIs are essentially identical except that they say ‘Nucleus’ or ‘Nucleus+’ instead of ‘Roon Optimized Core Kit’):

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This is the last build that supports BIOS boot devices. Later RoonOS builds require UEFI boot and so will not work on your Nucleus, the Nucleus Plus and many ROCK installations which were originally done prior to the introduction of support for UEFI boot (RoonOS 1.0 build 254 was the first Roon OS to support UEFI boot).

Modern ROCK installations, the Nucleus One and the Nucleus Titan, will be configured (in the BIOS), to use UEFI boot and will have updated to RoonOS version 2.1 build 271 (assuming they are left on the production branch).

As present, the only advantage that RoonOS 2.1 brings is compatibility with a wider set of HDMI hardware (irrelevant to you because RoonOS 1.0 supports your Nucleus) and the ability to run Tailscale on the server to make using ARC in double NAT/CG-NAT situations easier or even possible. This may or may not be relevant to you.

However, going forward, RoonOS 3.0 is currently available in early access (but your Nucleus won’t support it) and that brings another couple of changes which may be valuable:

  1. The SMB share that makes any music storage disk/SSD (internal or external USB) will no longer employ annonymous access so Windows 11 users will no longer have to change the security settings on their Windows Client machines.

  2. The handling of disks that have not been unmounted correctly has been improved which should for example, eliminate the situation where a NTFS formatted USB drive becomes unaccessible if it was previously disconnected from a computer without first properly unmounting it.

So, on your Nucleus, whilst the Roon Server application itself will keep updating, the RoonOS operating system will not and your Nucleus will gradually fall behind, with respect to the administration features, compared to a Nucleus One or a Nucleus Titan.

If, your Nucleus is currently running fine on your network and you don’t need Tailscale (your ISP does not use CG-NAT) and you don’t use NTFS formatted USB disks/SSDs connected to your Nucleus, then for you, the updates to Roon OS don’t really matter. However, there is no guarantee that that situation will endure - for example, if you use ARC, then tomorrow, your ISP could decide to migrate the provisioning of your router external ip address to CG-NAT and then ARC will no longer work and, since RoonOS 1.0 does not support Tailscale running on the server, the workaround that you would have to employ (running Tailscale on another computer configured as a subnet router) would be significantly more complicated to set up and would likely require another device to be permenantly switched on when your are away from home (unless you are lucky enough to have a router that can run as a Tailscale subnet router as well).

16

I love the Roon Nucleus One. I have a NUC14 ultra9 with 96GB RAM as my Roon server. The Nucleus One is a great end point. Yes it works as a Roon server and end point at the same time if you choose.

The advantage over a Mac Mini is the ease of upgrading RAM.

The Nucleus One is invisible and zero work.

Regards

Andrew

17

I have a new one just got the Titan and the nucleus server is 2 TBH internal storage.550+ shipping

18

I’m not technical but what an informative post. A quality forum and without doubt the go to for such knowledge

19

I moved from an old Windows 10 desktop to a Roon Nucleus and have been very happy. I tried going for a intel Nuc but ultimately decided to get the Nucleus since ram/memory and everything else is outrageous in pricing. Just like Roon, the Nucleus just works and works well.

20

I’m an ex Linux techie with dozens of white papers on tuning and setting up Linux on some of the largest companies websites. So I know Linux and when I ran Roon on Linux, i used the most common Linux that most enterprises use, I wouldn’t use any other Linux. I stay away from Linux distros that are labeled “tainted” or proprietary.

I used a 2012 Mac mini for my music server for almost 8 years until I got a m1 Mac mini. I have 200k tracks and that matters what kind of hardware you need to run Roon. I bought a trash can Mac Pro, put Linux on it, and put Roon on it. The only disk I had on this server was a 128g ssd for the weekly Roon backup. I actually shared the storage on the m1 Mac mini that I used to run Roon on, so doing this, my m1 Mac mini server backed up this Roon storage using Time Machine, and the speed of clicking on a track or album to play was almost instantly. This setup sounded better than the m1 Mac mini setup. Even our audio club members heard the sq improvements.I don’t use usb to a dac, will never use usb, so I use Ethernet from the Roon Linux server to a streamer that has a galvanized Ethernet to i2s connection because I only use i2s to m dac. I keep my Roon servers in a different room than my dedicated audio room.

My trash can Mac Pro cost me around $200, with 6 cores, 64g of ram and a 512g SSD. Running Linux, this is a great little machine. I don’t touch the Linux code, don’t need to update it, but Roon updates its server app automatically when I click on my iPad when it says a new Roon version is out, do you want to update it, and I click yes. I have 2 of these Mac pros if you would want to purchase 1 with Linux already installed.