Though I appreciate both, I’m not talking about a white paper, I’m not taking about reading Roon’s marketing materials (great as they are!), no, I need to hear some real world experience from either:
A. Community members who previously used a Mac mini as a Roon Core and subsequently moved to a Nucleus. If so, why?
B. Folks who maybe have had a Nucleus, in the past, and, for one reason or another, decided it wasn’t for you. If so, why?
The Nucleus is for people who don’t want to get technical, or want something that looks nice. It offers no advantages over a similarly powered NUC or Mac Mini.
I run ROCK on a 10 year old Lenovo x220 i5 laptop, which cost me nothing, and works flawlessly.
Pick depending on what your budget, technical ability, and aesthetic needs are.
So, I’m not trying to sound like a jerk here, and, listen, we’re all busy, I don’t want you to commit time you may not have to my inane line of questions, but, without knowing the exact nature of your prior issues using the Mac, it’s really difficult for me to gauge what kind of improvement you feel the Nucleus has made for you.
I’m not challenging you to justify your purchase, but, I do need something tangible upon which I can reflect.
In your estimation, what, would you say, was your single, most glaring issue in your set-up that the Nucleus resolved?
I went from a 2018 Mac Mini running headless to a Nucleus. Now, I’m not tech averse in the least. I installed early, early Linux around 1993 for a computational linguistics project and have used everything from Solaris to AIX to every flavor of Linux in my time as a tech professional. Still, I found maintaining the Mini when software updates came around an unnecessary time suck that required hooking up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse (Screen sharing gets broken during install/restart). The 2018 Mini was reaching the end of OS updates too, and an attempt to install Linux was complicated and resulted in a broken system (USB and Bluetooth didn’t work).
So I went with a Nucleus and it is very reliable as an appliance. My only gripes are (1) the power LED in the power button can’t be defeated in software which means it can’t live beside my home theater gear and (2) no auto-restart on power outage.
Maybe next gen will get these features!
The Mini could be set up for auto-restart but it requires no encryption of the drive and some other setup features and often wouldn’t restart Roon on restart…
Just to add my experience was that roon worked well on my Mac mini, but just occasionally I’d get network related discovery issues that required a restart. Probably related to my network, but I couldn’t isolate the issue. I also needed to upgrade os and software from time to time.
I thought I experiment with a ROCK. It has been faultless and effortless to maintain.
Many good reasons here posted to go for a nucleus (I did so myself). To get the full picture, you’ll want to ask yourself to opposite question as well: why go for a mac mini instead of a nucleus.
@Joe_Strain
I don’t have either. I am using ROCK on a NUC. So I think I may say that am a neutral person in this discussion between Mac and Nucleus.
But I am someone who, on a daily basis, reads this Roon forum. It appears to me that, on a regular basis, threads are started by Mac-users that the Roon Core is not running as it should on their Mac. Very often it has to do that Apple has done an iOS-update due to which Roon Core is not 100% running as it should.
This is something which you will never have on a Nucleus, as this is “maintained” fully by Roon.
So, if I had to choose between a Mac or a Nucleus, I would opt for Nucleus. YMMV. (But if I don’t have to choose between Mac and Nucleus, I would go immediately back to ROCK on NUC: cheaper and more powerful).
Good luck with your choice, Frank.
I wasn’t punting Windows , I used to be an Apple user 1982 I think the Apple ][
I am still on windows 10 until I buy a new PC so I can see ROCK
I do think it irresponsible of MS to demand a hardware upgrade to use their product. There are many Windows users who simply can’t afford to upgrade who are facing security issues in the future simply by MS’s decision
There are many businesses using ages old OS one upmarket food and clothing outlet in SA is still using 7 or maybe 8 if their default desktop image is anything to go off
Irrespective of fault it is a Roon issue affecting Windows users just as the Sequoia/Tahoe issues are/have been Roon Issues facing MAC server users.
It is import to know all sides before making a decision. If a user expects to be using a Windows PC to manage storage then this is something to be aware of.
Having said that, someone asking about a MAC mini Vs a Nucleus is probably not a Windows user.
Thank you. Very philosophical point, my friend!
Always good to ask questions from all sides of a discussion.
I would not ask that particular question of myself, however, because I am already using a Mac mini.
The purpose of this thread was to clarify my thinking as to whether or not the Mac mini to the Nucleus was a viable jump for me to make.
I believe this thread has provided more than enough good information to take with me.
I sincerely thank anyone who took even a second out of their busy lives to respond. Thank you!
I don’t know how to close this thread. Clicking on a solution check box and giving any one of you the nod over another doesn’t feel right to me. The “solution” to this thread lies ultimately with my final decision after all! LOL
Happy holidays to everyone and all the best to you and your families.
, I used to be an Apple user 1982 I think the Apple ][