Hi community,
I’m new to roon and very interested in setting up a server at home. Since I anyway planned to get a small dorm factor pc for my photo editing with lightroom I thought it might be possible to combine it with roon. What do you think about this idea? Do you have recommendations for the hardware? Initially I planned to go with a Dan v4 case. Thank you
There’s no reason why this shouldn’t work, but you’ll need to consider the minimum specification for Roon plus Lightroom … you’re going to need lots of RAM. Also, both use OpenGL so I would test that both play well together before investing in hardware.
Do you intend to leave the PC on all the time? May be better to buy a NUC and use this exclusively for Roon.
Thanks. Yes it will be running 24/7 I’m not sure if that’s a good idea when using a Win 10 pc. But otherwise I would need two systems.
You can always try it and see how you go - spec for a good Lightroom system (which I’m sure will also be sufficient for Roon) and, if in time you don’t like it, you could add a NUC + ROCK for Roon. I use both but like the simplicity of ROCK, and I don’t use Lightroom more than weekly, so they sit on different machines.
Edit: I should probably also say that I started out with both on the same machine - they co-exist fine, though at that time I wasn’t doing anything too taxing with Roon - I guess it’s possible that if either app is thrashing the CPU then it could impact on the other - perhaps others with experience of this will chip in.
I have my roon core on a multi use machine, I often run virtual machines (use a lot of ram, little CPU), light room and playback to 1 endpoint, with little trouble. If lightroom is hammering the CPU playback can get interrupted occasionally, but not often, I figure this is OK as it mainly happens during photo imports. My machine is an old i7 + 16gb ram, in a fan less case, I would expect new machines to be better.
Thanks. Are you using your roon server to stream on your mobile e. G. At work? Maybe I will just setup an system For lightroom and see whether it will work also for roon. As you suggested. I’m not sure if a nuc will be sufficient for lightroom?
@Stefan_Woll , not sure which of us those questions were directed to but if me then there isn’t currently an easy way to stream Roon when away from home (some folk manage with VPN and a Roon solution is likely to land this year). As for NUC and Lightroom, am sure it would run fine on the faster NUCs but you are inherently limited in terms of internal expansion (RAM/drives/graphics). My knowledge is out of date but I’d be a bit wary of using a NUC as my only box for that reason. Am sure others will chip in here though!
That’s my thoughts as well.
I think a nuc is probably fine for lightroom most of the time, but unless there is a compelling reason to go for a nuc I’d go for a full blown desktop. But my knowledge is out of date and I’m sure there are good places for lightroom PC advice.
Just updated my 2013 Mac Pro where I run mainly LR and PS and basic office duties (ROCK is on a dedicted NUC). Went from 16gb ram, four core to 64gb ram, six core used CPU from OWC - self installed, what I call legos for adults - and LR runs much better now. So I would go with minimum 32gb ram and fastest CPU you can afford. Roon will run on a lot less, but I didn’t want to keep my Mac Pro awake all the time, and imo it sounds better on a low power NUC with its own LPS.
Thank you all for the feedback. I will wait for the new Dan case v4 and will set up a lightroom device. I will test roon on my old notebook.
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