Somehow I have the feeling this might be discussed a lot of times, but I could not find the right answer.
I have run my Roon system on a Nuc DN2820FYKH with 2gb 1333hz ram and 60gb Kensington v300 ssd drive.
Last week I realized that I had an old Macbook laying around with far superior spec laying around. It’s a 2011 MBP with i5 with 8 gb 1600hz ram, Samsung Evo 840 128gb ssd, and a WD Blue 1tb drive.
For an upgrade path I have the two following options:
1- Use the nuc but upgrade to 4gb ram (half of the mbp) and use the Evo 840 drive
2- Use the MBP as a core/rock
What would you suggest doing? And if option 2 is the best how would be the best way to set it up?
My recommendation would be to acquire a NUC on the supported list, fit 8GB of RAM, and install ROCK per the install guide. Anything less than an Intel i3 is not recommended. If you’re not ready to make such a commitment, install Roon on your MacBook, but be aware, it requires macOS 10.15+
If you have a working core improve it with additional memory. Mac fans will no doubt say try at least to use it but you need to be prepared to tinker to get a working system where as you already have something that works.
Think about updating your hardware too. With both of those options I fear you are in danger of not being able to run Roon at all.
Upgrade your MBP to 16GB ram and run core on there if you don’t want a dedicated ROCK machine. You can upgrade your MBP to Ventura via legacy patcher. Very easy process.