Roon drop outs via wired USB connection

I finally have some time to play with my library on the Synology 1513+ NAS and Roonserver.
The 1513+ NAS is connected to my Oppo 105 via a 3 meter Belkin USB cable (the one recommended by The Absolute Sound).
Playing FLAC (red book and 24/192) , I experience drop-outs once or twice per song, randomly. I look at the NAS resources and the RAM is at 35% while the CPU is at 62%, with neither moving significantly in either direction throughout play. As the resolution of the files increases, the drop-outs seem to increase in frequency.

When I use the OPPO media app via ethernet instead, all these files play perfectly.
Any thoughts/suggestions?

Is Roon Server running on the NAS itself? If not, what is it running on, and how is that computer connected to network that NAS is on?

Also, switch out the USB cable (with any old USB cable you have) just to confirm that there is not a problem with the USB cable used currently.

Roon Server is running on the NAS itself. I don’t have another USB A to B cable to switch out at the moment but will shop for a replacement.

cable can be a cheap cable…just a test.

Just switched out the cable with a $10 replacement which is only 6ft instead of 10ft.
DSD64 files still fail/crash but that looks like a resource issue, as both CPU and RAM spike in utilization into the high 80s %.

Switched to 24/96 HD Flac and the dropouts still persist, so it is not the USB cable…

I would like to hear from other Synology users what their hardware config is (Synology model, CPU, RAM) that enables them to play DSD64 (or higher) via Roonserver on their NAS.

Also, without DSD capability, Roon is of limited use to me and My NAS is too new to replace already (1513+)

To have a better view of what we are comparing here:

  • How big is your library?
  • Is your Roon database stored on a spinning disk or on an SSD?
  • Are any other tasks running on your NAS concurrently?

CPU usage seems rather high. On my NUCi5 with Roon playing to a single zone, CPU usage is nearly nil.

Roon library is approx 17,500 albums at the moment.
The Roon DB is on spinning disks (the same volume as the library).
No other tasks are running on the NAS, at least not active ones. There are always a bunch of tasks running in the background.
Right now, Roonappliance is consuming 45 out of the 58% of cpu usage.
Java throws in some spikes of usage every now and then, as does Syno.core.syste.

Even when I do not play any music and shut down the Roon app on the ipad, the Roonappliance on the NAS consumes between 24 and 36% of CPU and 1.5 GB of ram.

When you go into ROON settings, do you see Roon still analyzing all your files (for volume normalization). I have about 6,000 albums and on a really fast desktop computer seems like it was analyzing files for several days on my albums. That was about 100k tracks. And you have closer to 400k tracks.

Please be aware that your system is way underspecced for running a large library of 200/250K tracks. See this entry in the knowledge base for recommended system specs when running Roonserver on a NAS. It also explains quite well why the problems you experience are to be expected in a setup like this

In your situation, you’ve got practically everything stacked against you: underpowered Atom CPU, limited RAM, slow spinner for the database and endpoint processing on your Core. It may help somewhat to install an SSD for the Roon database, but with a library this size, you’ll be much better served running Roon Core/Server on a small i5-based server (could be a NUC or a likewise small box). 4-8GB of RAM and a small SSD will be enough.

Thank you for the feedback.
If I decide to go the NUC route, I will have a lot of questions.

  1. Where can I get some recommendations for a NUC with enough horse power?
  2. How do I migrate or recreate the database on the NUC
  3. Will I need to buy a second license from Roon? If not, how do I migrate the license from the NAS to the NUC?
    Thanks again.

With any NUC of the 5th or 6th Gen with an i5 CPU, you’ll be covered for running Roonserver. If you like to overspend, you could go for an i7, but consensus says it’s not really necessary. Run Linux if you can – there’s a good guide for doing a minimal Arch Linux install here, but you may want to take it easy and turn to Ubuntu Server for an easier install. With Linux, 4GB RAM should be enough, but since RAM is cheap, spring for 8GB or more. Put in a small SSD for OS and database – an NVME M.2 stick would give excellent performance (see this thread for more info).

Migrating the database is quite easy – just follow the outline in this this article.

No, you won’t need a second license. Once you’ve migrated the database, you can unauthorise the old inserter stall upon configuring your new Roonserver. Your active license will be transferred automatically.

Sample for a NUC spec:

Corsair 1x8GB, DDR3L SODIMM, 1600MHz, CL11

Intel Barebone NUC NUC5i5RYH i5 5250U

Samsung SSD 850 EVO M.2, 250GB

Am I missing anything? If not, all I need is an OS and a way to migrate Roon database and license?
Will I still be able to control/browse from my Ipad?
Sorry for all these questions, but this is my first NUC exploration…

Thank you Rene.

System looks fine – Samsung 950/951 would give you NVME speeds, but is more expensive and not really necessary. As for your last question: yes, all Roon(server) installations can be controlled by tablet or phone.

Feel free to ask any other questions you may have – others will chime in, and we’re a friendly bunch here!

In the meantime, I have removed some of the other packages from the NAS (Minimserver, BubbleUpnp and Java), all of which consumed cpu and memory. This lowers the CPU and Memory usage at rest, but I still get drop outs when playing hi-rez tracks via USB to the Oppo.
Now, before I invest time and money in a NUC, I want to try one more thing: someone mentioned hooking up an SSD to the Synology and run Roonserver and its database off of that. Questions:

  1. As my 5 drive bays are full, can I hook up an SSD to one of the USB slots in the back?
  2. If yes, any recommendation on which SSD I should use, knowing it may find its way into a NUC if this does not work?
  3. Are there specific steps to migrate the Roonserver and the Roon database to the SSD once it’s hooked up?

Thank you as always for your comments and insights.