Which current QNAP model is best for Roon as a Core. Looking at 4 Bay minimum with SSD Bay capacity as well?
Also, which model to avoid?
Cheers
Yes, this is why I sated current… It is reffering to 2016 model
Things have evolved since. Looking for something that will not only do Roon, but also build a multi-media library. Photo, video, etc.
I am currently considering the TVS-882-I5-16G model.
Tks.
It will primarily depend on how big your library is and what DSP features you plan to use and how many endpoints you want to stream to concurrently.
Personally I would not use a NAS as the core for my Roon deployment with 150000 tracks and growing and heavy use of DSD512 up sampling with often 2 or more streams running. I do find good value running a NAS for my music collection however. This combined or a dedicated NUC or PC core machine works well for me.
The good news is if you do run out of “puff” on the NAS you can always migrate the Core to a dedicate platform later.
Can’t say for sure how the TVS-882 will perform. But maybe this helps: I’ve compared the TVS-471 (with Intel i7 cpu) and TVS-473e (with AMD cpu) here.
Both perform pretty good. One plus point for the TVS-471 (and this also applies for the tvs-882) is a swappable cpu (originally it was equipped with an intel i3 cpu).
So, if i remain on my macbook pro i7 16gb 2013 i would get better performance as a core and simply attached external storage would do the trick???
You should try but but will depend as I said on what resources you are going to be using
I use a synology NAS just as a media storage. And in addition the most powerful i7-NUC board in a wonderful fanless case (Cirrus7 Nimbini v2) und NVMe SSD and 8GB RAM, Roon ROCK installed and connected to the music library on the NAS.
This works like a charm. Lightning-fast, rock stable and inaudible. I compared it to a i5-NUC from Intel and the i7 in this fanless case is a big step up in the Roon user experience. And a little bit curious: I imagine that the sound is better, probably because of less electronical noise thanks to no fans?
The cost for this fanless NUC including SSD/RAM ist around EUR 900,00. The performance capabilities of the NAS if only serving as media storage for the Roon Server is not really high, a consumer NAS is enough.
I can recommend this solution without any reservations!
The Qnap TVS-882 is a 8 bay NAS and list for $1808 without the hard drives.
For this kind of money you could lower your specs on the NAS and for half that price get a Qnap 4 Bay with the hard drives and with the savings you could still build you a NUC either with ROCK or Windows 10 with your music added locally and then use your NAS for backups and other media options.
Probably still have a few coins left over.
–MD
If OP is considering a NAS there is no point in suggesting spending money on a fanless NUC.
A fanless NUC is for when it is impossible to have the Roon Core outside the listening room.
IMHO the preferable placement of Roon Core is outside the listening room.
Nas interfaces are some what different and while I have no recent experience with qnap, they do have a hardware base that is better suited (with the high spec models) to higher spec app needs like Roon.
I guess if I was starting from scratch with no dedicated core platform I might consider the qnap along with a need to have other nas based functions.
Chris @crieke would have the best handle on this as he does the nas integration scrips and essentially is most familiar here with Roon on nas platforms.
Personally I like my Roon Core off nas…but that’s just me. Plus my nas is synology and is 4 years old so not able to cope with my DSP needs or my large 10TB library.