I’m a new Roon user and standing up my first Roon Rock server. I’ve reviewed numerous posts and experiences with configuring an Intel NUC. I’ve also researched the recommendations list that Roon provides on supported hardware.
I’m wanting to future proof my build some, so I’m over building it a bit for my needs. My primary goal is wanting to try to minimize the time and effort involved and hopefully avoid a few of the problems that I have seen encountered when building a ROCK server, so I have decided to order a NUC from QuietPC in the UK.
Here is the configuration from the QuietPC shopping cart that I have right now. If you assume that I’m sizing properly on my needs (DSP, multichannel, existing library size) is there anything in this configuration that would cause you concern? I want to avoid as much as possible buying a build that is known to have technical incompatibilities or reoccurring ROCK installation challenges.
Thanks so much for any insights you might be willing to share.
Configuration:
Quiet PC UltraNUC Pro 7 Fanless
Akasa Newton S7D Fanless 7th Gen NUC Chassis
Intel 7th Gen NUC Core i5-7300U, NUC7I5DNHE, M.2 and 2.5in Drive
I’d probably up the WD Green to at least Blue.
Have a Google on the various colours to see what each colour is designed for.
Not sure of the price difference but Intel NUC is on the 10th generation (11th gen due in May?).
Agree, go for the H model of NUC (the one which takes an SSD as well as M2 - gives you somewhere to go if storing music locally).
I find the Intel NUC quiet enough in its ‘raw form’ and would come in a lot cheaper than the quiet chassis, but maybe I’m going deaf
The 7i5 is perfect for your needs. In Nucleus terms it is the i5 version of the same board used in the Nucleus or Nucleus+ revision A. That means with a decent quality M2. drive it will be unconditionally stable with ROCK as long as your network is good. I like WD drives but I don’t know how the different grades compare. I think mine is a Blue.
ROCK is meant for very specific hardware, as listed in the ROCK guide. Loading ROCK on any other hardware that is not the base officially supported NUC model, and that includes changing the case, is considered a MOCK.
I got the configuration below from Quiet PC Nov 2018, has worked really well. Added a 4TB SATA SSD later to store local music files rather than getting them from a sluggish NAS, which is now just a backup. I don’t do so much DSP, though, and I run Ubuntu Server + RoonServer rather than ROCK because I’ve been working with Linux for many years and I like the extra level of configuration management I get that way.
Akasa Newton S7D Fanless NUC Chassis
Intel 7th Gen NUC Core i5-7300U, NUC7I5DNHE, M.2 and 2.5in Drive
Thanks for alerting me @CrystalGipsy. I assume it wouldn’t interfere with ROCK if I didn’t use, but had it installed? I want to be sure there is some odd tech capability issue introduced by having it on. I don’t intend to use initially, but I would like to have the option for WIFI and Bluetooth in the future, in case I want to multi-purpose the NUC differently later with another OS and ROON OS.
No it just wont be active, it wont cause any issues. There are only a few wireless cards ROCK supports not sure which ones but its a handufl. Roon dont recommend wireless at all for the core so one of the reasons they left it out that and having less to support dirver wise and keeps ROCK small.
Hi @PeterL I appreciate the insights. I think that begins to get beyond my skis in time and knowledge, but I will think on it. I think I lean towards doing my best to spec out a NUC that has a solid chance of not having any hardware technical capability issues.
I bought the same NUC a few years ago. I did get annoyed by the fan and the recurrent issue of having to remove dust, so I then bought the same case you mention and is has been absolutely great. I think it came with all the thermal compound I needed. I have had no problems with ROCK since installation, always on, never had to reinstall etc so I can certainly recommend that set up. Only difference is that I went with a Samsung Evo ssd (which seemed on paper to be faster) and of course a drive to store music on, I went for a 4gb hdd.
On a side note, I have only good words to say about Quiet PC, they were a great company to buy from…
Mark- I’d suggest increasing your ram to 16 or 32MB’s to reduce the stress of the system especially if you have a large library. You can never go wrong with too much RAN and Roon is RAM - hungry.
IIRC, the folks at ROON have stated that the ROCK will not benefit from large amounts of RAM. Check the official specs and stick with that. Don’t waste your money on things you won’t see benefit from.
Double thanks to @Rugby for sharing a lot of additional context to consider on my build. As I mentioned, I wanted to future proof my build in the event I wanted to run more than ROCK on it, I decided on the following build from QuietPC.
UltraNUC Pro 7
7th Gen NUC Core i5-7300U, NUC7I5DNHE, M.2 and 2.5in Drive
