Is a NAS still considered underpowered to run Roon Server in 2021?
A mid-range NAS like the Synology DS720+ will have a modern Intel 64-bit processor. For instance, the Celeron J4125 has similar performance (single-thread and multi-thread) to that of a 5th generation i3 processor in a NUC.
I currently have a DS-920+. It can do PEQ on native DSD64 without breaking a sweat.
I am adding another Roon Server. I can get a NAS (DS-720+) or a NUC (8i3). They cost roughly the same. The NAS can be used to backup files. The NUC can do more processing, which I may or may not need.
This isn’t just about the processor. Yes a modern Pentium or Celeron can match an older supported i3 but the other considerations such as library size, DSP and endpoints still apply. So they are good enough but caveats still apply.
J4125 is plenty enough if you don’t use DSP functions of Roon. I’ve run mine for a year now with zero hiccups (QNAP TS-253D). Just remember to add some extra RAM for the NAS if you go for more affordable models. They usually come with 2-4gb stock but 8gb is recommended for Roon.
Running my library on TVS 671 without any DSP, performance was good until 300.000 tracks; did a lot of reading in the forum during the last weeks, I came to the conclusion:
I love this appliance kind of thing (having the NAS runnung 24 x 7, easy updates, good backup features, … )
Up to appr. 200.00 tracks okay, above may start to crash from time to time or gets slow; reason: QNAP uses Mono (a open source implementation of .NET for LINUX) which has some garbage collection issues … some people with large libraries are restarting Roon resp. QTS on a regular basis (once per week, or nightly)
I am thinking about moving the Roon core to a NUC with Rock; even if recommended: I don’t want to store my library locally on that NUC (I would have to buy additional 24 TByte), therefore would mount the library on my NAS to the NUC, only “drawback”: new music wouldn’t be detected automatically => I would need to manually start a scan
Therefore my recommendation to you:
go for a NUC with Rock and use a local disk for your library (nightly backup / sync with the NAS can be configured)
or if you can live with manual rescan after adding music: just mount the music library on your existing NAS to the NUC
Looks like Synology now comes with DSM7, which may still have issues with Roon.
Mono is not horrible but I agree NUC/ROCK will run better. I only have 3000 tracks now. I doubt I will ever have more than 10K tracks. A local 2.5" SSD with 500GB of space will work.
I do need DSP because I use Roon for room correction. However, I use PEQ and not convolution.
So interesting. I am still having issues with drip outs and losing end points even though everything is hard wired into my 818 and 861.
Only the meridian ends get dropped but adding albums to Roon or favourites etc takes time.
Are these issues possibly because I’m running on NAS? I put dedicated ssd in there and the only thing the nas does is this but I was wondering if speed and delays and drops could still be NAS even though it was the top one I could get when I got it and it now has the SSD for Roon as well??
Ts871 qnap with i7 and 64gb ram
24tb of disks and 19 used. 10gb of albums.
2 x 256gb SSD drives running Roon
This is a NAS only because is connected to the network and keep’s some storage , otherwise it should be on pair with any i7 based computer out there and way above the regular underpowered units the most of us have.
Are the SSDs on their own volume? External or internal?
Just thinking that I had a very old external 256GB USB drive that I tried Roon out on, and it wasn’t great - loads of drop outs. I switched for a more modern 1TB drive (external) and so far so good. Hardly any music locally tho, maybe 1.6k albums, but when I tried these on the old spinning disks Roon seemed to run just as well for me.
It’s not obvious because you seem to have a powerful NAS (mine is a TS-453 pro and handles DSP etc with plenty of headroom) so I’m wondering if something in between is the cause - do you have a router, a separate switch with everything connected to that or do you have a router with several ports that are used instead? if so which router?
One last thing - which QNAP firmware are you on? Did you switch to QTS 5.0 and did you notice any change in behaviour re: drop outs before/after?
Roon isn’t just about local tracks, any streamed albums you add to your library take up the same requirements as local albums , they look to all intents as if they are in your local library
dropouts have always happened in this house. Tried a number of different switches into the ISP-provided router which is not swappable out. On QTS5 now but all other versions had done before. Interesting dropouts are only on Meridian kit, mostly on the 818v3, next frequent on the 861v8 and least frequent into the Explorer2 DAC. My Apple TV and regular end points like my iMac never drop…
