I much prefer to run Roon Core on a separate NUC for the following reasons:
The ROCK image is officially maintained by Roon. To me it is not optimal to rely on a third party to adapt Roon Core Server to Synology or QNAP
Too much hassle to install Roon on a NAS. Yes, it can be done, but life is too short. I’d rather listen to music instead
As soon as you start to do any sort of resampling (i.e. DSD to PCM, EQ), a Celeron will not be sufficient. I have run Roon Core on a Pentium NUC for a while, but it was only just powerful enough to run headphone EQ. As ROCK does not run on a Pentium NUC, I had to install Roon Server on top of dietpi and update the two separately
once you start tweaking the NAS with mirrored SSDs and the like, a NAS solution will be more expensive than a regular NAS and a ROCK based PC
I have now moved to ROCK running on an asrock Deskmini 310 and an i5 and I worry no more. The asrock Deskmini sits next to my NAS, runs ROCK and costs significantly less than an equivalent NUC.
Hi jacobacci,
I appreciate your post, but I have the impression your points are a little bit vague and it feels like you are comparing it to NAS in general and not just to small form factor NAS (don’t know, if this is true).
Yes, that is true and the Roon Software itself is also maintained by Roon. Having it running on a NAS is nothing different than having Roon Server running on any other Linux, Mac or Windows system.
I don’t see the hassle:
I don’t think it is fair, to speak in general about NAS, when you are actually comparing a powerful NUC against a low spec’d NAS (Atom, Celeron). In the recommendations for NAS should also be clear, that the best experience will be achieved with a proper suited NAS.
If you just want to use the device to run as a Server, I agree that a NUC or Nucleus is a very good option. If you want to do more with it and be more flexible with other services, I see the advantages on the NAS side.
Yes, the NAS is more expensive, especially when it is within Roon’s recommended hardware specifications and it offers more options. But the default settings work pretty well, with no need to go through every available setting.
The price of a SSD is the same, whether you put it in a NUC or in a NAS. Of course tweaking can be done on both systems (linear Power Adapter, more Ram, faster SSD…)
To me, one of the advantage in the NAS scenario is also, it will lower your required network bandwidth, as you have all your media files locally on the device. So there is only the stream to the endpoint going through your network. In the NUC + NAS scenario, the server needs to grab the media file through network and send it simultaneously to the endpoint.
If you just compare the solutions by its price tag, then the NUC will be your 1st choice. But some might have different use cases for Roon Server, which can’t be accomplished with ROCK.
To me this is the best argument for running the Roon Core on a properly spec’ed NAS. Mine has been running virtually trouble free since the fall of 2016 on a QNAP TVS-471.
My point with power consumption is that by adding a NUC you are incrementally adding more power drain. So if you can do both functions (NAS & Music Server) you are eliminating about 14W every hour of every day every year. We already have a router, TV, Phone Charger, DVD player, preamp, SACD player etc. It adds up.
My post was referring to the OT’s request for thoughts on the matter. For my usecase cost was the main reason for chosing a separate ROCK. A sufficiently specced NAS would have cost me roughly 200 EUR more than a more modest NAS and the ROCK. I wouldn’t have needed the more highly specced NAS for anything else than Roon Server.
My NAS landscape is Synology, and for Synology installing Roon Server is not quite as easy as for QNAP.
So for my use case the choice was clear. I am not doubting that for others a single NAS may be better.
This is the rough cost comparison (in EUR or CHF) I did (about a year ago). As noted in the graph, I compared the cost of:
different NUCs an asRock Deskmini configuration
different QNAP NASs
In order to accomodate the fact that a (modest) NAS needs to be added to the NUC to get the same functionality, I subtracted 200 Euro from the Cost of the QNAP NAS to make them directly comparable. All NAS cost are empty without HDs.
This has been an extremely informative thread - thank you everyone for responding. I am still partial to a NAS solution, but am coming around to a more powerful version - likely a 4 bay QNAP model to get the processing speed, memory, and other options.
The final point I need to consider is the final point - how to get the Roon data stream into our audio system. Currently, the NAS and audio systems are in separate spaces, though both on the same network connected via standard ethernet cabling.
However, our electronics (Bryston) is not streaming capable. By the time I convert ethernet protocol into S/PDIF or similar, I might be looking at a NUC anyway.
I could direct Roon to the available networked Sonos Connect in the audio room - comments?
Everything is lossless ALAC or FLAC for standard Redbook CD (44.1kHz at 16 bits).
Sonos already answered on another thread? It would be disappointing if that somehow became a bottleneck.
If you already have the NAS, why not just add a NUC running ROCK?
This separates the NAS to just storing the media, and then a dedicated processor to index, manage and serve the music files from the NAS.
Simon.
