ROCK NUC performance

When I got to about 65,000 tracks in the library (maybe three months ago?), Roon slowed down in the following way. When shuffling through all the tracks, I like to build a playlist by using the thumbs up or down until I have one or two hours of music lined up. The time it takes from clicking either thumb to Roon displaying the next track to thumbs up or down increased. Now it takes about 2-3 seconds after I click the thumbs down, and about 3-5 seconds when I click the thumbs up. That goes up to about 10 seconds, if I skip the currently playing song while Roon is “thinking” of which song to suggest next (during those 2-5 seconds after clicking the thumb).

This delay doesn’t seem to have developed gradually. I am under the impression that it went from a delay of about half a second to what it is now very quickly. As such, I have the nagging suspicion that an update to the software might have done it. However, the size of the collection and the hardware running Roon seems to be the more likely cause.

The hardware in play is as follows: NUC5i3RYK with 8GB of RAM and SAMSUNG 850 EVO M.2 2280 250GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal SSD running ROCK and not storing any music; Synology DS211j NAS storing the music (all FLAC); Android tablet as Roon remote; Squeezebox Touch endpoint; separate DAC connected via coaxial SPDIF. I would blame the NAS, but it’s at about 50% capacity on a striped pair of good quality spinning drives. Everything is connected via gigabit ethernet, except the remote control, and the delay is there even if I use my ethernet-connected desktop as a remote.

The NUC also does volume normalization, and I upsample everything to 24 bit 192/176 (I use the “multiples” option).

Is the NUC just too wimpy for that many tracks? Would it help if I connected the NAS to the NUC via USB? I suppose it could also be an update to the Synology software (those come along frequently).

Is there something I can do to the NUC to light a fire under its ass (like overclocking)?

Thanks for any help you might offer.

You running latest builds? Settings -> About to have Roon check if you are.

How big is your queue and/or previous plays? Try clearing them.

What radio seed were you using?

Is analysis cranked up to use more than 1 core?

The thumbs are fast for me on similar class hardware, with twice as large of a library size, and the NAS isn’t in play here.

Thanks, @danny! I learned a lot from just your questions! Here’s my journey in response to your e-mail, in case others might benefit from it:

I had a large number of previous plays, going back to late December 2017. I couldn’t figure out how to clear my previous plays, so I first cleared the cache in the “Setup” submenu of the settings menu. That didn’t change anything. Then I clicked on the only apparent choice of “Clear Upcoming,” just above the queue. That cleared the playlist of tracks to be played, and then it gave me the option to clear the previously played tracks from the queue.

Clearing the previously played sped things up a bit, going to a 2-second delay on either thumbs up or down. A nice improvement, but not as snappy as it was before. Then, I started trying to answer your questions.

Builds: Core is 1.4 (build 306) stable (64bit); tablet is 1.4 (build 310). The core seemed to be “Checking for an update…” constantly, but when I went to the NUC’s web GUI, it didn’t say anything about it. It did give me more info about builds: Operating System version 1.0 (build 156) stable; Roon Server Software version 1.4 (build 306) stable.

I restarted the Roon Server Software from the NUC’s web GUI, and it stopped checking for an update in the “About” window of the settings, and, after giving me the option to relaunch, it installed Roon Version 1.4 (build 310) stable (64bit) on the Core. That brought the delay time down to .5 to 1 second on either thumbs up or down. That’s the delay I was used to, but your other questions intrigued me.

I seed the radio by going to the list of all tracks, then clicking “Shuffle.” I assume that uses my whole library as the seed? Would there be a way to shuffle through the whole library that would make the radio suggestions faster?

Yes, “Background Audio Analysis Speed” in the “Library” sub-menu of the Settings menu was cranked up to use all 4 cores. I set it to use 1 core, but that didn’t make any discernible improvement. I set it to “Throttled,” and that didn’t improve the responsiveness of the radio suggestions.

I was delighted and impressed to learn that the NAS doesn’t present a bottleneck in this situation. Weird, given the age of that model.

Thank you again, @danny! I’m fine with the 1-second delay, but any tips you might have (or a link to a set of tips) would be icing on the cake.

In your setup, the NAS is only used when music is actually played.