Roon Core on a Dedicated Mac Mini or Shared Mac Pro?

Woah! (This is me walkng back my recommendation)

Not with 130K tracks!

Go with a NUC.

Apologies if I failed to see that library size before I opened my trap. There’s been discussion here about Apple’s performance with yuge libraries like yours.

Research on!

It will work but not as snappy as you like.

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If you want something simple to set up consider the sonictransporter. You will need the i5 at least.

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Not even with the i7 mini?

At those prices, I’ll have a stab at setting one up myself. I just thought that a MAC would be a no-brainier.
TBH my i5 Surface Pro 4 seems to handle the library ok, but as mentioned, I know the Core needs to run on its own machine.

I’m wondering about the i7 Mini now. It’ll be dedicated and headless.

I cant find the thread and posting where this discussion took place. It was the last month or so.

A Roon Developer wrote how Apple’s OS isn’t as efficient reading/writing large libraries as a NUC would be. (I am paraphrasing.)

Hoping @support will notice this and point to the discuusion. Thanks in advance guys.

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The Mac Mini hardware is pretty good and the 2011 / 2012 models are easily upgraded with more RAM / storage. If you already have the hardware then I see no reason to go with something else. MacOS appears to have some issues (especially when connected to a NAS), but Windows and Linux are both excellent platforms on which to run Roon. Might be worth doing a native Windows or Linux install on the box… Personally I’m loving RoonServer on Linux and that’s the route I would take.

Ubuntu Server 16.04.1 loads perfectly well and with a little tweaking you can get a pure UEFI boot.

http://heeris.id.au/2014/ubuntu-plus-mac-pure-efi-boot/

Also, be sure to load macfanctld and update the config file to ignore all of the sensors that are kicking out screwy values.

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Try this link and read thread:

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Thank you so much, Tom and Andrew, your advice and the link explain everything. Now I understand why people could be experiencing issues with OS-X and large libraries.

Although my library is far smaller than the ones cited in the thread, and I doubt I’d run into quite the same issues, it IS a concern that the issue could arise.

Regarding the hardware. No, I haven’t bought anything yet, so the world is my oyster. Of course, I’d simply assumed I’d either buy a MM if planning to run OS-X, or NUC if running Windows. I’d never considered buying a MM and running Windows on it, but why not? I’ve had and used Windows on my MacBook for years, when required. It’s very stable.
But I’ve never thought I could successfully run Linux on a MM!
Or all three! (Not at the same time, of course!) :relaxed:

My listening room is about to have a makeover, and the Hi-Fi is currently functional but not in its full state of setup, so I’m not in a huge rush, and that gives me choices as far as choosing hardware is concerned.
A S/H MM is about £500 for a 2012 i7/8gb. Factor-in £100 for 16gb ram at some stage. (Those 2012 MMS are sought after, it seems).
Then possibly add Windows for another £100.
A current new NUC i7 seems to be about the same sort of price (albeit with later generation of i7 processor and everything else, for that matter). But of course limits the ability to run OS-X if I wanted to.

One other area of interest is that, because I’m an AV installer, I want to install Roon for a couple of my clients. I don’t think their collections are huge, but to have a one-stop HW solution would be very cool. Having said that, I’m not hell-bent on installing Apple HW. If a NUC provides a robust platform, with the minimum of recurring maintenance, I’m more than happy to go with that.

I know nothing about Linux, Andrew, but I’m consistently reading that it’s a sonically better option for players/end points, so it does interest me.
Again, in the name of experimentation, is it about the same difficulty to install onto either MM or NUC?

Thanks again folks.