Quick question if I may, and apologies if it’s hijacking the thread: Is a BIOS update required for this NUC? I’m a Mac user and am considering switching to Roon Rock but hesitate due to the outdated Roon knowledge base articles. I’d hate to spend time trying to go through a long and frustrating install process. So also thinking about just getting a well-specked new Mac Mini, instead.
Have to toss out my recommendation here for my favorite very inexpensive well-performing “easier than a NUC” MOCK. No bios updates, no hardware other than adding an external USB drive (or NAS storage). See thread for experiences of others who have never built a ROCK before…
I ended up building a MOCK. See my other posting.
I didn’t need to update the BIOS in my case.
Thanks, I have seen your other posts about this but, I forgot to mention, I have a very large library.
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Most likely, this won’t be necessary for Roon OS to install and perform.
Thanks, as I have little experience with PCs, I’d prefer to stay with Roon-supported kit.
You may well have mentioned. How large? This bad little boy does have 12GB of very fast RAM. And I’m intrigued to know how it handles larger libraries. But yes, if I had a huge library I might build for it. That said, $137 on Amazon with easy returns, you could figure out pretty quickly if it does the trick. And I know this isn’t actually Roon supported (yet!), but it was (for me, YMMV) easier than any of the Roon supported kit I’ve previously built. Never opened the case, never touched the BIOS. Can’t say that for any NUC I’ve bought.
That said, if you’re a Mac person, running an M2 or M4 Mac mini headless seems not too hard, and people love 'em. I’m a Mac person too for desktops/laptops but not for servers.
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Library is 38264 albums / 334456 tracks (Qobuz and 3TB local lossless files).
According to this post:
So, seeing also they have a European store (GMKtec Mini-PCs | Geek-Design, moderne Technik, zertifizierte Qualität) I might consider that. Would you care to recommend any particular model on that page?
Now we’re getting into uncomfortable territory for me, because I don’t want to suggest that just because we know two specific models worked well that all will work well. We know that people have had decent experiences with the G3Plus that you link to. But if you get a barebones one and buy RAM and install it, you’re getting back into the realm of building your own, and away from the spirit of “I’m a Mac guy and I don’t want to get involved in building a computer.” I’d be really reluctant to push you to something and you have a poor experience. The whole spirit of the GMKtec N97 is that it’s less work than NUCs for people with basic libraries (I have 45k tracks). I think someone else with a better sense for big libraries than I should advise you!
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I doubt it very much. I recently switched my ROCK installation from a 7th gen Intel NUC to an Asus NUC13ANKi3 and didn’t bother with upgrading the BIOS - there didn’t seem to be anything in the BIOS release notes from Asus that needed an upgrade to be done.
The new ROCK/NUC is performing very well…
That’s a big library - it would certainly overwhelm a GMKtec Mini-PC. Even a NUC13ANHi7 will probably not give you the best user experience.
From the Hardware specs article:
Largest Libraries
If you have over 250K+ tracks in your library, consider us impressed! You’re among the top .01% of Roon users, and you have a library most of us could only dream of.
With libraries this large, we expect the right hardware will work, but it’s not something we test in-house.
Your best bet will be to get a beefy Roon OS setup with a fast new CPU and plenty of RAM, but a very high-spec system running Linux, Windows, or macOS can work just as well.
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The BIOS update thing stems from a specific old NUC that for a while had a default BIOS with known errors.
That is a big library. What hardware are you currently running?
Something like this perhaps?
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I don’t know whether you’re being serious or facetious, but AFAIK, those machines would not be a good match for a Roon Server. The database runs in memory and uses the main CPU, not a neural network/graphics engine. 
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Actually they would not run Roon Server at all:
DGX Station includes the GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip
And then:
CPU Core Count 2,592 Arm Neoverse V2 cores
(from: NVIDIA GB300 NVL72).
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I’m running a Macbook Air M1 16GB RAM with 3TB music files on external SSD and Qobuz. There have been issues, some of them with Qobuz, with Roon error messages pointing to my network, though both the router and the Macbook are on ethernet). The RAM seems to be sufficient, as there have been no crashes. But Roon core often disappears, putting an end to quite a few music sessions for the night… Also, I got what seems to have been the Sequoia issue (endpoints/core disappearing). Other than that, all fine 
In that case, I see a Mac Mini M4 Pro 48GB RAM in my future…
Way, way overkill for Roon server, even with a considerable library.
I don’t think more RAM is the solution to your issue.
CPU stats between the Macbook Air M1 and the GMKtec N150 suggest performance should be comparable.
My GMKtec is scheduled to be delivered in the next few days, I will report once it is installed.