Upgraded TS-251 or TS-473?

Roon Software Discussion QNAP/Synology NAS
1

Hi, I have a native QNAP TS-251 (2GB RAM) with one 4TB SATA disk containing some +60k songs (half FLAC). I have Bluesound.

When I installed Roon (on the same disk) it was extremely slow which was confirmed when reading the recommendations from Roon ( QNAP TS-473 and 4GB of RAM and an SSD for the Roon databases).

I see two alternatives:

  1. Upgrade my TS-251 to 4GB (or 8GB) maybe with the cheaper Crucial memory rather the recommended QNAP memory (3 times more expensive). Add an SSD, either internal or external. All this, with 8GB, will cost around $100.

  2. Get a TS-473 and an SSD. This will cost around $1000.

Do you think alt. 1 will work?

Regards,
Jörgen

2

I think this will do fine, Roon usually stays under 4Gb and with the Roon DB on an SSD it will likely be a good solution.
The TS-473 i Think iv’e seen someone have issues with.

However, you’ll go a long way with moving your Core to a Rock NUC instead? It’ll be about half of the cost but it’ll have you covered for lots of use cases…

3

I have this exact config (8GB), albeit in the TS-451 which is identical apart from the 4-disk bay.

It works really nicely for me. I have a 70,000 track library and don’t do any heavy DSP stuff.

4

Hi Mikael,

Thank you for your swift reply!
The price for a 120 GB Kingston Ssdnow UV500 is 38$ here in Sweden and that seems OK. Adding some 90$ for 2x4GB of Crucial RAM might be a good solution.

Interesting though with the Intel NUC Rock, though…

Thank you,
Jörgen

5

Hi Mark,
Interesting, as I understand the TS-451 came with 1 GB you have upgraded it to 8 GB. Did you use 2x4 GB Crucial memory (Crucial DDR3l 4GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM SO-DIMM 204-pin)?

Regarding SSD, I am thinking about a Kingston Ssdnow UV500 120GB 2.5" Serial ATA-600. Good price.

Thanks!

6

You don’t need a large SSD for the Roon database… so don’t buy more than you need. even 64GB will be overkill

7

I used two of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CQ35GYE/ref=pe_385721_51767431_TE_dp_1

8

Yeah, I read that, but they didn’t have any smaller that was compatible. Not that expensive anyway.

9

Wow, that is an excellent price! While I am at Amazon, can you recommend a good SSD to me?

10

I had this one lying around:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/240gb-sandisk-ssd-plus-internal-25-sata-iii-6gb-s-7mm-530mb-s-read-430mb-s-write

  1. It won’t win any performance awards
  2. This is from nearly 5 years ago
  3. You don’t need this much capacity as @wizardofoz said
11

I found this at Amazon for a good price to add to the RAM while paying the freight to Sweden.
# Kingston SUV500/120G SSD UV500 SATA3 2.5 Inch Stand-Alone Drive

12

It depends on in what areas Roon is slow. You probably won’t get much faster music analyzing results with more Ram and SSD. The performance here results mostly on the cpu.
The SSD will probably make the browsing within Roon faster.
I’d try option 1 and see if it works well as it is not as expensive for now. If you are still not satisfied, you can switch to option 2 and take over the ssd to a new device (the Ram will most likely not be compatible).

13

Thank you Christopher, I will go for that. For now I will spend under $100 for 8GB and 128GB SSD and see how it works out. Good I can use the same SSD if I buy another NAS.

Regards,
Jörgen

14

As an option you don’t require a new NAS if you keep the music there and opt for a NUC you could put the SSD in the right spec NUC and run ROCK but the Ram won’t hurt staying in the NAS either or use the SSD as a fast cache on the NAS.

15

Hmmm, that is a very interesting option! I have now read some on NUCs and ROCK and I will definitively have that in mind.

Thank you!

16

Just about any NUC you use in the 7/8 series will be so much better than any affordable NAS can run