Enjoying my free trial, but have to make a decision soon. If I continue using Roon, which I have enjoyed a lot, I clearly will need a different hardware solution than my current 10-year old Dell Desktop, which has an Intel Corel i5-4440 CPU rated at 3.1 Ghz and 12 GB of RAM. Just having Roon on alongside my other programs pushes me up to 90% memory use, and anything more complicated in terms of library management or multi-zone playing gets me close to maxed out. My library is about 80K tracks, and I have Tidal.
My Dell is slow in other ways, and I have been thinking about replacing it anyway, especially as it will not support Win 11. That said, I can also see the attraction of a stand alone Roon server like the Nucleus. There’s only about a $200 price difference between the Nucleus and a Dell with a Intel i5-12500 and 32 GB of RAM, so the desktop option seems more attractive, but I thought I’d see what knowledgeable users thought.
Have people who switched from a desktop-based Roon server seen remarkable improvement in performance, both for Roon and their desktop? Do users with 32 GB of RAM on a desktop ever have Roon slowdown and “hanging” problems? And which setup seems to support Roon ARC capability best? If I’m travelling, for instance, would it be easier to just leave a Nucleus on instead of having to have my desktop running 24/7 to supply streamed content to my IPhone?
I’d recommend the stand alone appliance solution, Nucleus One or Nuc/Rock. You can’t use either one for anything but Roon and Music but that is actually the great thing about them. No software to worry about other than what Roon provides.
I like the Nuc/Rock route, Build your own with components you choose.
M.2 SSD drive for Roon OS and Database - SATA SSD drive for internal music storage and the amount of memory you want. With a USB attached SSD for backups.
I put my Nuc/Rock together in 2019 and it has been running 24/7 since then. It is only shutdown when needed for maintenance, cleaning or component swaps/upgrades.
If you want something that is basically a black box, but generally adequate and quiet enough to be put in the living room, Nucleus or a ROCK system are good.
Installing the Roon server on a regular desktop with a general purpose OS (whether Windows, Linux, or MacOS) gives you far more flexibility in both the use of the computer for other purposes, and for operation and monitoring for less money.
If your current system can handle the Roon workload (minus the other stuff you are using it for). Then you’ll also have the option to install Linux on it. Since you’re planning to get a new computer anyway.
I’ve ran my Roon Server on my old 2014 Mac Mini with great success. It had similar hardware to yours (2.6 GHz 4th gen i5 dual core CPU, 8 gb of RAM). And a database of around 80k tracks.
With your current library size Linux with Roon will easily fit in your systems 12 gb of RAM. In my current server (Lenovo laptop with 16 gb of RAM) Linux and Roon sit around 6.7 gb of RAM usage with my current 86.7k track library. (68k local tracks, the rest a combination of Qobuz and Tidal favorites).
Convert the Dell to a ROCK with a (new) SSD for Roon and HD’s for your music, no new NUC needed for Roon. Use a Raspberry Pi with Ropieee as endpoint. Works like a charme!
Then buy a new PC for your daily use.
Don’t forget, you actually can use a NUC with ROCK plus e.g. Windows or Linux installed on separate drives. Boot drive then to be selected through BIOS boot keys. Nice multi purpose device
I like the independence of a separate Roon Server. I use a Small Green Computer Sonic Transporter that I have a 4tb SSD installed. I am considering a change. My desktop computer is an M4 Mac Mini and the improved flexibility of MacOS might be an interesting solution. So two M4 base Mac Minis. i would then put the 4tb ssd in a thunderbolt enclosure on the server. Two computers is a bit more work to maintain.
The M4 mini will run Roon and your desktop applications rather nicely I would think. I might just try that too.
There are a lot of options. Do not rush but do get that old machine upgraded! Windows 11 may not be your only option!
From what you’ve described, my personal advice would be to go either the NUC route (running Roon Optimized Core Kit) or the Roon Nucleus One route, rather than running Core on a PC. Both of these options offer a dedicated service purely for your music, which is ideal in that you never have to worry about turning it off, as you likely would with a computer you utilize for other purposes. (Caveats, of course: rare maintenance or power outages.) To me, that’s the most important quality-of-life/usability factor.
One can find a plethora of debates across this forum, Reddit, etc as to any perceivable difference in audio quality between using your personal computer as a Roon Core versus have a dedicated Roon server, although I can attest that I heard a difference once I upgraded to my NUC/ROCK.
I’ve now been running Roon ROCK for just shy of two years. As far as slowdown, hanging, or other issues, I did find an improvement when switching to a dedicated server, although the problems did not TOTALLY disappear. But issues/glitches/complaints seem to vary wildly across the Roon user base, so just bear that in mind.
In my opinion My short answer to the question of PC + Core versus ROCK/Nucleus, hands down go for the dedicated ROCK/Nucleus. Do not share the Roon processing with a PC used for other purposes. Others can probably provide informed answers on this, but I do not believe that installing a yacht-full of RAM into your Windows 11 PC will mitigate any potential performance issues. Just do the server.
Now, what I can’t speak to, and which I’d be curious about myself, is whether a Roon Nucleus One would have any performance benefits over a NUC at a similar price point.
I strongly suggest high end NUC running Roon ROCk as server and low end NUC Celeron running Roon Rock as end point. As an endpoint they do so little work I have never heard the fan spin.
It works flawlessly.
My library is about 270k tracks and my reasonably new ASUS NUC 14 Pro plus Ultra9 server is responsive and flawless. I have a dual monitor PC in my study and have the NUC mounted on the back of one of the monitors. Totally unobtrusive.
I have used a dual Xeon 16 core server in the past but the NUCs are more trouble free and last few generations of NUCs are more responsive.
Wired network is way better in my experience and 2.5Gb networks brings useful improvement in responsiveness.
Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful and comprehensive responses. Now that Christmas is over, I can re-engage on this topic.
There seems to be a fairly large majority recommending some form of stand-alone server. I’ll return to the various options in a later post, but my first issue is how any standalone server is controlled. Right now, with the desktop, I can manage the library and the zones, upgrade and clean metadata (including going to Discogs and Musicbranz) all on one machine (with keyboard, mouse, and dual screens). Color me stupid, but I’m not clear how all of those functions would be performed on any standalone. On the ROON article on Nucleus, it APPEARED that one actually DOES use the Roon app on one’s desktop to control the server on the Nucleus. Is that actually how it works? Would that be the same for a NUC, or a ROCK system on my old desktop? Presumably, that is a much lighter load on the new desktop’s RAM than the server would be (Roon Appliance, etc., again presumably, would be on the stand-alone device’s RAM/CPU).
Thanks again, and sorry to be so confused. You guys have been great, and having this community is really one of the big plusses of the ROON universe.
The Roon interface you’re using now for Roon on your desktop is what you would be using to control the Nucleus. You could use your smart phone or IPAD to control Roon on your desktop now if you have one available. Just go to the app store with the device and download the free Roon software.
Thanks, Mike. Am I right to think that that setup would be much less RAM-intensive than housing the server on the desktop? Shouldn’t have to worry about the server hanging or being slow to respond?
I would expect Roon to use the same amount of memory regardless of the platform its running on. The only difference I can imagine is the possibility of memory creep on one software platform vs another. If your experiencing memory issues on your current setup you could bump the memory from the current 12gb to 16 or 32gb and not make any other changes. See if that helps.
Roon has to share available memory on platforms that run other software but on Nucleus or Rock platforms Roon is the only user of that memory. I built my Nuc/rock server with 16gb of memory and never had an issue. I’ve upped that to 32GB simply because I had the memory on hand and wanted to put it in.
Not sure how to answer that question. Is that a problem you’ve encountered with your current setup that shares resources with all the other software programs running on it? If so it could be some other software causing that.
If the platform you choose is up to or above minimum specs required for your use case, including Roon, then Roon should not have that problem. Other folks in this community do it all the time.
I started out running Roon on a beefed up Windows 7 desktop purpose built for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, photo processing was my only hobby at that time, and it worked great but I don’t recall running Roon with the Adobe software at the same time and sharing resources. I did have the occasional hiccup with Roon because of the wireless connection. I didn’t have the option of Ethernet connection at that time.
My answer to that was to go the Nuc/Rock server route with the server next to the router and wired directly. I used Roon on that desktop to control Roon on the Nuc until I got an IPAD for that purpose. I use a windows laptop, Android Phone and IPAD for Roon remotes now, just depends on what is handy when I want to start the music playing. The Nuc is always on 24/7, available and ready to go.
Can’t say the same for the Window 7 Desktop. The software is woefully out of date. But It still works when I need to bring it up for Photo processing.
I echo others on here - it’s best to have a stand alone machine for roon.
I personally use a NUC i5 16gb with windows together with a program called Fidelizer that shuts down non essential programs and optimises widows for audio.
I just prefer Windows as I know my way around and also it doesn’t lock me in to roon if something better and or cheaper comes along.
I’d recommend a standalone computer just to do all the work.
Here’s a good video by John at Darko Audio. He sets up an Intel Nuc computer but, also has a nucleus.
You can pick up a Nuc8 and upwards with decent ram for as little as $200, but I think a slight newer model and around $350 is a good starting point for a deal.
Thanks again for all the good advice. If I DO go the stand-alone route, as most are suggesting, it would appear that I have three general options, based on the assumption that I’m going to buy a new desktop anyway for $500-700. I could either buy a Nucleus 1 for $499, build a NUC for something a little less than that, or repurpose my Win 10 desktop described in the first post to be a dedicated ROON server, at no additional cost. In the latter case, it sounds there are two sub-options: wipe it clean and install ROCK, or just keep it as it is and run the ROON server through the installed Win 10 OS. In all cases, I would continue to control the server from my new desktop, using the ROON app.
Do I understand this correctly? Anyone have further views?
Pretty much. That’s the nice thing about Roon. You can completely control your Roon Server remotely with the Roon app.
In my case I have to because with Linux there is no control app, just the server running. So I am controlling my Roon Server either from my iPad or one of my network connected computers.
