I’m running Roon on a base M2 Mac Mini, and thought I’d leave it alone, but after reading this I might reconsider. Or at least wait for a Black Friday or other holiday sale.
Saw a YT video that touted the advantages of a 512gb model. I’ll have to relook at my storage utilization, but don’t think it’s that much. My mini is being used as a core server only, it’s fanless, and is stripped down to what Apple won’t allow me to remove. I’ve got an antivirus and firewall running on it as well (paranoid).
Just got my Mac mini M4 pro 64 gig memory. My library is 6495 albums with 156797 tracks. I’ve had it up and running for a few days with my library on the internal SSD. And it has made really no improvement. Currently it is only running Roon and everything else that I can think of is turned off (iCloud, etc.). I came from a Sonicorbiter i9 (first generation, internal SSD) and got sick of the slowness. I transferred the server to my Mac Studio M1 Max and the music to my Synology NAS. It was a little slower but not much. Really excited about the Mini M4pro but really hasn’t made a difference. Still seeing blank screens with grey boxes and the pulsing Roon logo (this is with Qobuz unplugged. Plugging in Qobuz makes it MUCH worse even with no favorites in the library.) Really disappointed. The mini is probably going back. Hosting on my Mac Studio with the files on the NAS wasn’t that much slower. I was looking at a Sonicorbiter I9 (4th generation) as it was about the same price as the Mac Mini. I’m wondering if above a certain library size Roon just is never going to be responsive. Maybe I need a Chinese quantum super computer?
Wow. Very surprising!!
I wonder if placing your library on a USB SSD (instead of Synology NAS) would help performance? Unless you got the 10GbE upgrade for the M4 Pro, you are bottle-necked by the 1Gb ethernet (or WiFi speed), or by the interface speed to your Synology NAS (1GbE?)
This is probably the case but I think you are far from this size. Something may be odd about your library composition. You should open a Support case if you haven’t
I have 11,617 albums but only 147312 tracks. Currently running on my high end 11gen intel laptop. All my music is on a NAS. I’m not see the issues you mention.
I wouldn’t say Roon is speedy by any means but I certainly don’t get blank screens, spinning roon logos or gray boxes.
Querying Qobuz causes slight delays. I have 1gbps fiber so not much I can do to improve it.
I got all my files on a external Thunderbolt 4 drive (Thunderbolt 4 certified enclosure, cable and NVME drive that maxes out the TB4 port)… I never had issues with my Library.
I’m currently running the normal M4 Mac mini 16gb ram as Roon Server. I just finished setting it up but performance feels good so far. I’m currently playing 7.1 PCM files downsampled to Stereo with upsampling to 192khz, PEQ for my headphones etc and activity monitor shows all that is using like 5-6% performance and I didn’t even disable unnecessary stuff from MacOS yet.
im also running Qobuz in this setup with a basic 250mbps internet connection
(I’m sure the issue is with the NAS or somewhere else if a 64gb ram version of the m4 pro! mini has issues running Roon with qobuz)
I got 6400 albums , using a combo of purchases tracks on an external ssd drive and Tidal and using a M2 mini ,16 gb ram and its super fast. Im very happy.
I had a Mac Pro 2014 (Trash Can) for the past years. Tried Roon on macOS but didn’t cared for speed so I used an older Mac mini i7 with USB NIC and ran Roon ROCK headless connected to a QNAP TS-1685 on Gigabit Network. Nice. Was faster and able to go through my library with around 180000 tracks. Now my Mac Pro after 10 years died and took the opportunity to replace it
2024 Mac mini
Apple M4 Pro
64GB Ram and 1 TB SSD
10gb NIC
Now I did not get this for Roon … but since I have it and you asked the question.
Since the QNAP has also 10GB ports I connected the Mac mini to my 10GB port of my Eero Max 7 and ran a backhaul cable to my server room where the QNAP is and then I connected the QNAP to the 10GB port of the other Eero Max 7.
Now I installed Roon version 2.0 (build 1470) and used the 2024 Mac mini running Sequoia 15.1 as server, among all the other stuff I use it for, and add my library.
Hard to describe the speed I assume. But let’s say I got dizzy watching the album covers off 180000 tracks fly by while analyzing the tracks. Roon was finished in around 20 minutes
Just to be clear my library is now on the internal SSD of the Mac mini. As an example this evening I was looking for something to listen to and was scrolling through the albums. The scrolling was kind of choppy and when I clicked on the album I wanted I saw Loading Album and the pulsing Roon logo for about 10-15 seconds before the album came up. I was using an iPad Pro to access Roon. This was one of my albums stored on the internal SSD not a Qobuz album.
One issue I just noticed is that my system is STILL analyzing albums. It’s been like 4 days and I have the speed set to fast, 14 cores (just for the initial analysis.) But I have been sitting here watching it and it hasn’t moved on to another disk for about 10 minutes. Like it is stuck. I think I need to open support ticket.
If I setup a Mac mini M4 as a Roon Server, with music stored internally or via an attached drive, and then use the Mac mini as Roon Player to send music to networked end points, can I also output video from the Mac mini to my TV or monitor?
For instance, server and music and player on Mac mini with Ethernet to network and HDMI to TV. End point would be Cambridge Audio Evo 75 also connected to network via Ethernet.
It almost feels like a stupid question, but I guess what I’m asking is, will Roon ignore the audio over HDMI and send it to the end point selected (Evo 75).
Thanks Hacker19. In essence the ‘TV’ would operate the same way as a monitor connected to a PC or Mac does for video and the audio would be picked up by my end point via Ethernet or wifi.
Cheers Suedkiez, these options all work in my current setup (music on NAS and Roon player on iPad Pro with Evo as end point). I’ve tried your first suggestion and it doesn’t work very well (4:3 image on 16:9 screen).
I’ll do some testing by connecting a PC/Mac to my screen and see how that works.
Essentially I’d wind sitting on the comfy lounge controlling a computer using a keyboard and mouse I guess.