Recommendation for a large library

Roon Software Discussion
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Roon Core Machine

3.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 iMac, 64 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, 2 TB SSD
Lacie 16TB 2big Dock Thunderbolt 3 configured in Raid 0 (My Files are on the external drive)

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Connected via ethernet directly, no WIFI

Connected Audio Devices

Cambridge CXN (V2) connected via ethernet in Music Room
Hugo 2 Desktop USB connection in Music Room
Chord Mojo connected to Mac Book Air M1 for use in Living Room

Library Size

Currently at 376,550 tracks

Description of Issue

I am facing issues with the speed and the experience of using Roon. Browsing the albums through scroll down is smooth, then the issue starts whenever I try to access the album. The loading time is too long. Nevertheless, the search function is a pain and it takes time. I use Swinsian too, and I never face the same issue when searching (I know that I can not make a strict comparison, but just putting things into perspective).

I am looking for an all-in-one solution because I prefer to work on tagging and cleaning up my library, the original files on a regular basis. To add, given that I have many CDs I am ripping them in WAV and MP3. Many of these are Arabic releases and there are issues with the metadata. A number of these files were accumulated over the years, so there is work to be done. Personally, I do not find it feasible to dedicate a machine for the core, it will be a hassle for my workflow.

I am considering buying a Dell Optiplex, with the following specifications:

10th Generation Intel® CoreTM i7-10700, 16 MB Cache, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 2.9 GHz to 4.8 GHz, 65 W
64 GB, 2 x 32 GB, DDR4
SSD 1TB M.2
HDD 1TB

I will be using my Lacie 2big 16TB configured in Raid 0 as mentioned earlier, it is where all the files are stored.

I am not sure if this will solve the issue, appreciate help on this from the support team.
I am looking for a long-term solution, I stopped adding tracks to Roon after the 375K to avoid further drops in performance.

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Sorry if this is coming over as negative (and I am not support either), but I do believe hardware will never be able to solve your problem.
In my opinion, your library is just too big for Roon to handle, due to its cloud dependencies.

I would recommend to split you library in 3 (or more) parts, that you can activate/de-activate depending what you want to listen to.
You do not indicate how much local files you have, and how much streaming?
If it is mostly local files, you can divide your storage in different folders for Roon to manage.
If it is mostly streaming, best chances are to work with Bookmarks. I have no idea on performance impact but you can try it out very simple in your setup.

My 2 cents, please ignore if inappropriate.
Dirk

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@anon90297517
Dear Dirk
Thank you and no worries :slight_smile:
Any input is valued
And yes many of these are local files
Regards
Bilal

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I have twice as many tracks as you have and moving away from OSX and migrating to Windows solved the issue completely. My tracks are stored in a NAS. roon DB on SSD with 32GB RAM and 3.x Ghz CPU. Stay hopeful.

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I run Roon on a Dell XPS8930 that has smaller memory and cache than yours, an older CPU, and have 345k tracks on two WD PR4100 NAS units. I rarely have any issues, and when I do, it’s usually because Norton 360 decides to hog 75% of my resources. The size of a library like ours does make some operations slower, but all is within acceptable parameters, imho. I’m not sure why some people have a lot of problems…maybe clashing with other apps? I think you stand a very good chance at being satisfied with your setup.

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Thank you shinyc

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Dear Neil_Russell
Thank you for your help
I am currently using an iMac
I am considering to get a Dell Optiplex with the specs that I mentioned earlier

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I am sorry I gave you a wrong information. It might not suit your case but I am running my roon core on a ROCK machine not Windows. Sorry for the confusion.

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I was using an i7-7700 16GB with SSD boot on W10 but my library is a little smaller at 270K tracks (250K of this is local) and via internally installed 16TB SATA3 drive.

My Mobo/CPU died and I upgraded to the same as you are considering with i7-10700 CPU and used back the same SSD boot for windows 10 and the 16TB drive plus the 2133 DDR4 ram.

All went fine and this is in a fanless HDPlex chassis with HDPLex 200W LMPS. performance is solid and is only used headless as a Roon Server.

IMHO I think you should be OK with the i7-10700 and while I find 16GB is fine 32/64 might buy you a little headroom on a larger database.

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Thank wizardofoz
So mainly you are dedicating the machine for the Roon server.

It seems using the same PC for both (the core and opening other apps) is not highly recommended with larger libraries. But why Roon excels with Windows and not with macOS in these situations. The M1 chip is capable and outperforms the i7 in the tests.

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My library: 28000 albums / 500,000 tracks.
Roon ROCK is running on a dedicated fanless NUC (Core i7, 16GB Ram, 256GB SSD).
All music files (and the Roon backups) are on a NAS (Synology DS1819+ with 92TB drive space, 16GB Ram and 2x400GB SSD raid cache).

All connections are via Ethernet and a Gigabit switch.
Everything works without problems or issues. Search results are returned almost instantly.

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I tried on a 8gb m1 mini 512 ssd and it couldn’t cope swapping out to disk all the time.

I use win10 as I sometimes use other win based software plus I used to optionally run as a rock system on the old Mobo

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I think it is a lot more involved issue than just hardware horsepower. You might want to take a look at the following discussion:

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Thank you Patrick_Van_Osta for you help

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For what it’s worth I have the following setup:

474,686 tracks

Synology DS1520+ NAS with 8GB Ram

Nucleus Plus with 16GB Ram

Search and playback via Roon Remote on iPad Pro or on Windows 10

Searching generally takes about 5 seconds or so, but depends on the query and can be longer. Given the size of the database I find that acceptable. Narrowing searches via Filter is much quicker.

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I posted this in the support and it was shifted to Roon Software
I am not sure why the support ignored my questions
The support can verify from my email that I have a valid Roon subscription

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Likely as its not a support type issue.

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Thank you wizardofoz

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I think your problem (which is really Roon’s problem IMO) is your Mac. I have over 225,000 tracks in my library and when I was running Roon core on an i7 MacMini (all music data stored on a NAS), I had all kinds of problems with slow performance, audio interruptions et al. Moved Roon core to an Intel i7 NUC (running Roon under Windows) and all my problems went away. My conclusion is that Roon code doesn’t run all that well on Mac hardware, especially if you have a big library.

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I have a very large library with over 830K local tracks (all flac) stored on USB hard drives. Roon core is on a Windows 10 computer with an i7 processor and an MME drive with 64GB RAM.

All of the above suggestions are very good and several are worth repeating.

Search speed is generally pretty quick but at times can be very slow. The slowdown is usually as a result of, as @anon90297517 stated, Roon’s “cloud dependencies”. If and when that happens I either suffer with the slow speed or just restart Roon. Restarting usually solves the speed issues.

Another issue is the short wait that can be experienced while an external hard drives comes up to speed. I don’t know if Roon prefetches the next track, as does LMS, but if not then prefetching should be high on the feature request list.

Two other important things are lots of RAM and Roon core installed on a solid state drive.

One other note. The computer that my Roon core is installed on is also used to process the files to be added to Roon (tagging, art work, etc.) and also runs Plex for my video library. And everything is connected via Ehternet since WiFi produces nothing but headaches.

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