I am about to retire and would like to get back into listening to music using Roon and Tidal. I have an Intel NUC that I am using to run my local PLEX server and I have a QNAP TS-451A and a WD EX2ULTRA for content storage. I would like to install the Roon core on the NUC so I don’t have to purchase another system and can spend that money on one or two streamers. I’m the only user so I won’t be streaming music from Roon and watching a video from PLEX at the same time.
This is how my NUC is configured:
NUC7I7BNH running Windows 10 Home
16 GB RAM
Samsung M.2 960 Pro 512 GB SSD
Seagate FireCuda 2 TB SATA HDD
I don’t own much music now and am hoping to stream instead of purchasing additional content. What I do own ( about 1,000 tracks ) is stored on the QNAP now in FLAC format but I would probably copy it to the SATA drive in the NUC if running Roon.
Will I have problems running both on the same system?
I don’t think so. An i7 and 16 of RAM are probably good to go. I’ve run a Roon Server on a desktop i7 with as much RAM and Roon served streamers around the house flawlessly at the same time I was running high end graphic intensive games.
You can always try it out. later, if you find you want a separate box, you can always migrate your Roon installation.
Would have just tried it to see if it worked but I don’t want to mess up my PLEX server nor waste a lot of time only to find out that running both on the same system just will not work. If I don’t hear from anyone who has tried it saying it won’t work I will give it a go. Busy now reading posts about Rasberry Pi endpoints, thinking of setting up one using RoPieee as my first.
Most likely by not using ROCK as the OS for the NUC.
So, what is Roon Optimized Core Kit (ROCK) then?
ROCK is a do-it-yourself build of Roon OS. To use it, you will need to buy hardware components, assemble them, and install ROCK.
This is is what ROCK offers (and what it doesn’t offer):
It is completely free ($0)
It is an alternative to Windows/MacOS/Ubuntu/Arch/etc…
It runs Roon (The stock Linux RoonServer to be exact), but does not come with a Roon membership. You can sign up for a free trial or purchase a Roon membership here
It is an extremely lightweight Linux-based operating system. Much more on the scale of an embedded machine than a desktop or server operating system.
It is a turn-key image with all required pieces to make a Linux based Roon appliance without any prior knowledge of Roon or Linux
It should be near silent or completely silent, depending on hardware
It auto-updates in an experience similar to Roon, integrated fully into the Roon Remotes’ Settings->About page.
OS updates will blow away any “custom” changes you may have made to the OS, so we do not recommend you try to tweak the OS
It provides a web browser based configuration for networking setup, factory reset, power/reboot, etc…
It can not run additional software, nor does it support any customizations or modifications to the operating system
It has working multichannel digital audio output support (if the hardware has a working HDMI or DisplayPort connector)
You don’t need ROCK. I’ve run Roon on i5 NUC using both WIN10 and ROCK, at different times of course.
Apart from ROCK being free there is no reason to use it over WIN10. There are no SQ benefits from using ROCK.
Currently, I’m running Roon, Plex server, and JShiver on the NUC. I can watch a movie on Plex and play music on Roon at the same time without any provlem.
Intel NUC i5 8259U Bean Canyon (BOXNUC8i5BEK2)
Intel Optane Memory M.2 2280 - 32GB
Intel Optane SSD 800P series M.2 - 118GB
Windows 10 Pro license
I am waiting for all these parts to be delivered and I will install Roon Core and Plex Server on the the Win10 machine.
Have you been able to use all the filters and upsampling to DSD256 without problems? Do you think that the HW I have bought is enough? I have quit the idea of installing Roon Core directly on the NUC and I will go for a Windows 10 Pro dedicated machine.
As others have said, by not using Rock. Plex and Roon quite happily co-exist without any problems. Also my Roon settings are not putting much strain on the NUC, so it can stream content from both without killing it.
As the OP for this thread I feel compelled to chime in. Based on Rugby and Geoff’s comments I installed Roon ( full version, not server ) on my Windows 10 Home based NUC 7i7 in May of last year. The NUC has 16 GB of RAM, a 512 GB NVME SSD boot drive and a 2 TB SATA hard disk and runs Sophos anti virus in addition to Plex and Roon. It is connected to a monitor via HDMI but the monitor is used primarily for another computer so it’s essentially headless and I use VNC to control it remotely. I leave it running 24x7 and have implemented auto login so if it reboots Roon gets started automatically. The NUC is connected using Gb Ethernet to my Orbi router and all my endpoints connect via WiFi.
Windows updates have not been an issue. I’ve only seen the dreaded Tidal Too Many Network Errors message once or twice and a reboot always fixed it. I’ve also seen some of my Chromecast devices listed multiple times by Roon once and a reboot also fixed that issue.
For me using Windows and running both Plex and Roon on the same system has worked very well and kept me from buying another system just for Roon.
When ROCK was introduced I remember @danny saying he might allow plex to be installed as well. Has that idea been completely abandoned? Or is there still hope?
At the moment I’m running Plex server on dietpi and using the Tizen app on my samsung QLED.