I’ve been using Roon now for the best part of five years now without issue or problems.
Obviously, my NUC / NAS is becoming aged (Although at present working fine).
My question is: I’m thinking of upgrading the NUC to the latest Gen 10 iteration, together with a 2T SSD to replace the current NAS Drive that stores my Flac collection of ripped CD’s.
Should I go for i3, i5 or i7 and what Ram would be considered optimum ? and is there any point going for the highest specification?
My current NUC is the now discontinued Gen 7 i3 with 8 gb of ram which appears to work faultlessly ( for now). Note: This has been working 24/7
Obviously, I would like the Roon Nucleus + but the cost is restrictive…. By comparison. So a Fanless self build is my preferred option, utilizing one the latest Intel NUC boards currently available.
So, Can the Roon members offer some constructive advice of the best possible option, without breaking the bank.
I think a 7i3 is still a pretty decent Roon Core machine (that’s still the board in the Roon Nucleus I believe). And 8Gb is enough for almost all of us!.
Any issues with peformance?
If you have the version that has space for a second drive, then that would allow you to put your music on an SSD inside the NUC.
If you’re not already running ROCK you might want to consider that. Roon have done a good job of optimising the build and it’s fast, reliable - and very easy to maintain.
I built a 7i5 fanless ROCK recently (from a used 7i5) - and was lucky enough to find a NOS Akasa case available in Germany - so depending where you are I’m happy to pass the details on (he has a few). Even if your current Intel case doesn’t have support for an extra drive - the Fanless case does. You’d probably just need to source a suitable SATA cable.
In terms of ‘getting old’ - I don’t know what’s most likely to fail. My guess would be the OS SSD, but as long as you have a roon backup - replacing it without losing data is very easy. You could proactively replace it if you wanted - and just install ROCK and restore your backup.
But if you have a backup - you could just wait until something goes wrong. Memory and SSDs are still easily available.
Yes, the NUC is working as a Roon Rock Sever, with the latest Rock update. I do have scheduled backups, so no mater what happens, recovery is very possible. ( stored on the NAS Raid drive),
Unfortunately, I have the original slim NUC case and no room for an additional storage drive but the Akasa case (with room for a storage SSD) looks a viable option, and would be very interested with a link to purchase.
Is it not worth…… In your opinion, to upgrade to a later more modern board ? Possibly with a bit more ram ?
My only worry, is that all this kit is getting on in age and somewhat worried about possible failure at some point. ( although my record deck is now just passing 42 years old now, with no signs of failure) .
I’m still somewhat confused in what an i7 board actually does for Roon, apart from the obvious higher processing speed.
Five years is not that much anymore for a computer. I used to upgrade my PC (motherboard, CPU, GPU and RAM) every 3 years. However, I did my latest major upgrade after more than 6 years. Before that, just updating RAM and GPU and moving to SSD did the trick. If I didn’t want Win11, or if my old motherboard supported TPM 2.0, I would probably still have it. As @Rugby said, keep your system and continue enjoying music.
I think unless you are doing DSD upsampling or have a very large library or a lot of zones - then an i3 is fine.
If it’s currently doing everything you need - then a more powerful machine would probably just be more idle.
I run an 8i7 at home - but when I was testing a 6i5 that I sold here - I was a bit shocked to find it handled my multiple zones and PCM upsampling without any issue.
Initial scanning was much faster on the 8i7, and DSD256 upsampling with a single zone needed both cores on the 6i5 (but was still very stable), where this ran on a singe core (of 4) on the 8i7.
I think the app was a touch quicker with the 8i7, but I suspect it’s mostly idle.
So I’d say stay with the 7i3. An internal SSD and a fanless case (if it’s somewhere where this matters) would make it look smart and perhaps access your media a touch faster.
And perhaps buy more great music with the money you save!
I get caught up in upgraditis myself from time to time. Manage to handle it by buying actual audio gear that I may or may not need instead.
I’ve been happy with a 7i3 with an external USB SSD. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Stockpiling computer gear for redundancy usually isn’t worth it - except now, if you’re talking about Raspberry Pi’s, in which case you’re a genius if you had a few lying around.
Hi Johnny, yep sort of happy with what I’ve got.
Loads of Raspberry Pi stuff, ALLO Katana , Boss , etc, etc. Loved the stuff at the time and still as good as it gets.
Also running USB Bridge Signature and the Revolution Dac , Shanti as a second option.
Happy days. !!
