Roon Core on a Laptop, files on a NAS

Roon Software Discussion
1

Hi, since adopting Roon in my system earlier this year, I’ve been busy converting all my friends.

I’m trying to determine the best way to deploy Roon for a friend’s system.

My friend has a TerraMaster NAS with 1.5 TB of lossless files, and a SOTM SMS-200 endpoint on his home wired network. The NAS provides a built in DNLA server, and it is controlled via an iPad app, and this system works perfectly, but it lacks the elegance of Roon’s user interface and metadata.

What is the easiest way to deploy Roon in my friend’s place? He does not care about upsampling, so we don’t need a particularly powerful processor on the Roon core. My friend was planning to buy a new laptop, but it will be WiFi only. If we put Roon Core on the new laptop, will the files be going through it via WiFi, or will they stay on the wired network like they do now with DNLA?

Thanks in advance,

Trevor
Unofficial, non-commissioned Roon saleperson in Canada

2

When a song is played in Roon, the track is transferred from music storage (in your case the NAS) to the Roon Core, processing applied, and then sent from the Roon Core to the end point. If the hop between the music storage and the Roon Core is wireless then it can cause issues, and if the hop between Roon Core and Music Endpoint is wireless that can also cause another set of issues.

Imho, bottom line, the Roon Core should be on a wired computer.

1 Like
3

The audio passes through the Roon Core. Some people get on with wifi, but it has never worked consistently enough for me with Roon, even with standard res files and short distances. I have always needed hard wiring between Roon Core and remotely located NAS. As it happens, I now use ROCK on a NUC and have copied all my NAS music to an internal drive on the NUC.

4

Thanks for the replies guys, this confirms what I thought. Sounds like my friend is going to have buy more than just a new laptop if he wants to get Roon working in his house.

5

was he planning on using the laptop for other things? If not, then he should really look at getting a NUC and loading ROCK on it. That would be far cheaper (I think) than buying a laptop.

6

Look at the NUC alternatives on aliexpress. they are way cheaper and if Rock doesnt work just use the linux version of roon (or buy windows).

7

I’m still contemplating what might be the best solution for my friend to enable Roon. If he was to purchase a fairly powerful laptop and use a wired network connection, would there be any downside vs a standalone machine?

Thanks again

8

Make sure the laptop has an SSD, but, no, there should not be any issue. Laptops have the bonus of their own monitor/keyboard built in; whereas, stand alones will need a monitor / keyboard at least during setup. And that includes ROCK systems.