I was merely looking at a list of tested drives on the Intel site. Ideally, I can find a 4TB that is thin enough and would not cause a concern. Figure I’ll get NUC10i7FNH or similar.
But, yeah, haha, that 8TB sure is pricey!
A Samsung 870 QVO 4TB would set you back about €350. For music storage, the QVO technology is a good match (music is read-mostly) and cheaper than the EVO and Pro technologies of Samsung.
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While i don’t think it’s the best option, you could attach an optical drive to the NUC for automated ripping.
This does come with some drawbacks though, such as no metadata or covers. Actually not even file/folder names that are identifiable, so these files need curating to be portable. However, Roon usually makes sense of them through the user interface.
You can use the Export function of Roon to export the files and folders to an external storage location. The Export process will use the metadata in the Roon database to rename the folders to album names and the tracks to titles, and also write basic metadata into the track files.
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You are suggesting the export function works, Geoff? I have never been able to make it work… Must try it again i suppose! 
Noted.
I figure the easiest way for me is to rip from dBpoweramp using my PC as usual but rather than saving to a NAS simply save to the computer hard drive or a USB attached drive. I’ll drag and drop or one way or another move new album folders over to the NUC.
That “export” function seems pretty cool though for certain situations.
I’ve really appreciated all the support. I was heading down the wrong path. My new Cary Audio DMS-700 has seriously and surprisingly phenomenal sound and I’m excited to get Roon into the mix!
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Works for me…
Hi @jh901,
So, the ship is sailed for the NAS?
If you are in such a price range (Cary Audio DMS-700) you should think about the right power supply for the NUC as well (i.e. Keces P8)!
I’ll try the NAS (QNAP TS-473A) way - I’ll see.
Hi, yeah, I like the idea of the optimized Roon implementation.
Will figure out which NUC from the approved list before long.
I have a QNAP NAS to hold all of my music files. It has been very reliable and I haven’t had any issues. It also has a VERY easy backup tool called Hybrid Backup Sync. I have this tool set up to backup all of my music files to the cloud which is BackBlaze B2. There is a little problem with the way ROCK will interact with your NAS but I wont get into that. I have a QNAP TS-473. I put in a PCI card that supports 10Gbe ethernet (super fast). It connects to my NetGear router using a SFP+ port. Also my NAS has 2 M2.SSD files in it to support the cacheing feature on my QNAP NAS. It’s super fast. All of my devices are hard wired to my NetGear router/WiFI. I designed this in the brute force manner and I have never had an issue with my music dropping out. Almost fell through my ceiling when running ethernet cables through the attic so be careful.! I think ther TS-473 is now the TS-473A which has a bunch of graphics power which is a waste if your only listening to music.
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Hi @TKelley,
The NAS will run the Roon core as well - therefore the performance (no separate.Rock). 
The 473A has also 2x 2,5Gbit/s Ethernet sockets.
The CPU on a NAS spends most of its time waiting around for I/O from the hard drives to finish up. I’m not sure a faster CPU will improve its throughput very much. Add a couple of SSDs to your QNAP NAS to allow for SSD cacheing and it will become a race car!
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If you have a NAS that has enough CPU grunt and memory to run the Roon Core, then I see no issues with going this route. Granted, I’m at the extreme end of the spectrum (Synology RS3617XS + RX1217), but with 20Gbit fibre (802.3ad LACP) and the data throughput capability of multiple drives there are big advantages over a NUC/Nucleus. I run Roon to multiple endpoints, a Plex server and host multiple QHD IP cameras with motion activated recording. Everything has been flawless to date and the CPU/memory load never reaches more than 25 percent.
It depends on your drives. Spinners on mine are for Plex and IP cameras. Roon is on (Enterprise) SSDs. RAID 0 x 2 for the database and core, RAID 0 x 4 for the library. I know some people consider RAID 0 as ‘risky’, but everything is backed up, so if I lose a drive, I’ll replace it and restore. Drives are disposable/expendable and should be treated as such.
SSD cacheing isn’t a magic bullet and it only yields benefits under the right circumstances; it also increases the risk of data corruption. Far better to use SSDs for the main data drives than to use SSD cache with HDDs.
Hi @crieke,
Hi @all,
is somebody out there who can advice or lead me to a good configuration for a Roon core on a QNAP TS-473A 8GB RAM?
These are the components:
2x 2TB HDD in RAID1 from an old NAS (TS-212) until they break down or I’ll get some good facts to replace them. Normally I would not change anything on these 2 HDDs. Or should I do so? Why?
1x Crucial P5 500GB M.2 NVMe for the Roon core (or server). I bought a 500GB because of 300TBW and they are also cheap. What kind of Volume do I have to choose for the setting (static, thick or thin) and how much for core and DB? All or just smaller amount. As I wrote I only want to use this SSD for Roon and the Roon DB.
Or shall I use part of it for SSD caching (no glue what it is and if it makes sense. Usually I thought I’ll define it as a static volume with full size to use it in general, have maximum size, max lifetime TBW and maximum speed for Roon.
A thrird HDD I want to configure for weekly backup of the RAID1 HDDs. Any suggestions here?
Thank you very much in advance and I’m not an IT nerd (please keep it simple)
Not really a backup IMO when located on the same machine. You can possibly use the built-in snapshot feature without additional HD for the same level of protection.
Hey @Peter_Kuehnel See the topic I created a month or so ago about how are people backing up their NAS’s. I put some instructions in there on how to backup your QNAP NAS to the Backblaze B2 cloud. QNAP makes it super EZ to do a backup to the Backblaze B2 cloud. Cheap (Free!!) depending on how much you are backing up.
Hi @TKelley,
Thanks Tim, external backup is a good advise, but how do I do the NAS backup localy and the M.2 SSD configuration?
You can use HBS3 (hybrid backup sync 3) which is a free QNAP App to backup locally or remotely to an external USB drive. It’s very easy to set up once you’ve played around with it a few times and lots of options.
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Sorry Geoff, but this does not work, and have never for me…
I run a Roon ROCK at this time, and use an iMac for Control:
After 10 minutes i gave up… Nothing happening, both albums selected are local of course, and stored internally on the ROCK.
And, while we are at it, the Export of Excel data causes annoying dialogues stating that the file extension does not match the content of the file. Excel claims this o be an XML-file (and it looks that way when auditing with a text editor), not an XLS…