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!)
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.