Roon ROCK Backup - Directly From Device

I’ve been reading through the communities looking for posts regarding how to backup music files on a ROCK appliance.

From what I can tell, the only data you can backup from within Roon is your playlists and the database. That’s great, but they’re useless if your files aren’t backed up.

Outside of that, it appears as though the only way to backup the actual music files (FLAC, MPx, etc), is by mapping a drive to access them from a different computer, then syncing them to said computer…and optionally (ideally), backup the files elsewhere.

I rely on cloud storage (BackBlaze & AWS Glacier) for my backups. The idea of having to copy files from the ROCK to another computer, then upload to a cloud service seems horribly inefficient, and shortsighted on the part of the ROCK developers. Hopefully I’m mistaken.

I’ve also seen references to using some additional plug-in with the ROCK to do some of these sorts of functions, but that too requires running a separate computer.

There should be at least some level of shell access to the device such that it’s possible to SSH into it and access a cloud backup tool such as Duplicity…or even better…have Duplicity pre-installed in the ROCK such that it can be accessed through a web interface.

Duplicity: https://duplicity.gitlab.io/

Unless I’m mistaken, the ROCK is running atop a Linux-based OS. I’d be interested in knowing what the possibility is of doing something like installing Duplicity such that we can backup the most important asset we have - our music collection - in an efficient and performant manner.

I think you need Linux + Roon Core, and not Roon ROCK.

The company behind Roon already created a discussion thread abut this thematic:

Additionally a thread about features for Roon OS 2.0 got created:

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Pretty sure Daniel’s right. I ran ROCK for a short while — It was easy to set up and very robust, but I was frustrated with the backup situation.

I decided to try running the x86_64 version of DietPi on the NUC. With this setup, I was able to install GoodSync on the NUC and control/schedule backups of my music library (which resides on a hard drive connected directly to the NUC) from my desktop Mac. (GoodSync also works with Windows, Android, and iOS.)

This solution takes one’s Roon server a step or two farther away from “appliance” status, but it’s proved to work quite well for me, with no problems for over a year (knock wood) from the NUC/DietPi/GoodSync setup.

I’m a certified Linux idiot, so if you have some basic experience messing around with Linux, you can probably find your way to a similar setup.

The GoodSync manual says that GoodSync works with BackBlaze, so it’s perhaps a possibility for you.

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Rock is purposefully a locked down system with no options for a user to modify, install anything. I would suggest using a Linux build if you need those options.

As Roon OS has a smb share it’s pretty easy to set up a back up from another computer to backup music . My NAS backs up my Rocks music store every night then it syncs it to my cloud back up in OneDrive.

@Rugby yes - I understand that ROCK is intended to fulfill the “appliance” model and that’s the most attractive part of it. It’s nice that ROCK provides provides a mechanism to backup playlists & metadata. It feels like if Roon were to also provide a method to automate backing up your music would be the silver bullet that’s needed to make it a more palatable solution (being able to add extensions would be a nice second - but not required).

I think switching to a Linux-based OS (even DietPi) running on the NUC is going to be the path I take. While I’m fairly well-versed with Linux, I was a little confused as to the difference between Roon Bridge and Roon Server.

I know the difference between the two is outside the scope of this conversation. I’ll install one, then the other, and see if I can determine which I need.

Thanks for the GoodSync recommendation. I’m going to stick with Duplicity - it’s phenomenal!

I appreciate the feedback - y’all are great!

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Roon is designed to have 3 architectural components:

  • Core
  • Control
  • Output

Roon Server is a package of two of these: Core and Output
Roon Bridge just has one: Output.

As #CrystalGypsy says, you need to do it from another computer but you don’t need to copy it to that computer. The other computer can map the ROCK storage as a drive, call it R: if you have a Windows computer, and then back up R: to where you want it.

(Personally, I keep at least one local backup to a computer at home, in addition to the cloud: cloud backup protects against disasters like theft, fire, flooding that would destroy everything. But restoring from local storage is much faster if you just had a disk failure. Inefficient? Pshaw, storage is free.)

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