So I have been in the market for an affordable dedicated Roon Server core that will run headless. It had to be fanless because it will sit in the listening room behind me and cost 300$ or less. So no Nucleus (too costly for me) and also no NUC (has a fan and is more then 300$ without ram and M.2 SSD). I was thinking about an X86 SBC but does are also not cheap. Until I saw the MelE Quieter2Q on a youtube channel about computers. An Intel J4125 SBC with a Gigabit Lan port, 8gb of ram, M.2 SSD slot (128gb emmc) and Windows 10 pro pre installed (on the emmc). All for 240$ on amazon and aliexpress. Added a 240GB M.2 SSD and for 33$. That’s it. Migrated the Windows 10 to the SSD, installed Roon Server on it, moved the music external SSD and hooked it up, moved the Roon database and I have a headless Roon Server. It’s a small and slick little machine.
Maybe I should have installed Unbuto server on it and dich the WIn10 but i’m less knowledgeable in Linux and didn’t want things to get complicated.
Do you thing a Linux server has a advantage on Win10 for a Roon Server?
No, not at all. I do want to state that you are using a machine that is under the minimum cpu specs, which is an i3. While it might work fine for you and your use case; it might not for others.
Just for reference, I was thinking of getting a quieter2 as an endpoint. Never would I consider using it as a Core. What’s the limitation of your set-up? Even a properly spec’ed and actively cooled Core + a Raspberry Pi endpoint should be your goal if you can locate the Core somewhere besides behind you and the cost should be much more than the quieter2.
Well it works as a decent core for me and if you look at the specs it has everything a core need (SSD, 8gb of ram, gigabyte port and so on) . Regarding the CPU I took an educated risk that if I could get roon to work as a core + interface on my 7 year old 1 core lap top, a 4 core Celeron chip will be ok for a roon server app with no interface. And I don’t have a humongous library and don’t do DSP. Wired network limitations dictates the core being in the listing room behind me and a computer fan in the room is audible. The core is connected to network and I do use a Raspberry Pi as end point with a SPIDIF HAT connected to my DAC. The Quieter2 was chosen because a NUC would have cost more and have a fan.
I took an educated risk that if I could get roon to work as a core + interface on my 7 year old 1 core lap top, a 4 core Celeron chip will be ok for a roon server only app with no interface and nothing else running. And I don’t have a humongous library and don’t do DSP. Of course that one man’s solution won’t work for every one, but for me it is a very good very inexpensive option that checked all the boxes I needed to be checked and those the job well. And I wanted to share if anyone else wants to give it a try.
I’ve just bought a MeLE Quieter 2D N4000 dual core 4gb machine as an endpoint. It actually came with W11 and runs quite well. What it doesn’t do is update at all rapidly which was always my bugbear with running windows. Going to listen and finding updates due always annoyed me. That said, after two plus hours and multiple restarts (one forced because it stalled) I loaded Roon Bridge, gave it the necessary firewall permissions and it played to USB (Topping) and HDMI (stereo, TV). I then did the unthinkable and powered via a 12v LPS. MeLE say don’t but I did and it was actually really good.
The later versions of this box have later version processors including a Pentium that they claim outperforms an i75500U. I think with 8gb one of these would actually do core duties quite well with a small, pre-analysed library. And with room for a 2TB NVME M.2 you would have a decent sized library in a remarkably small package.
Two caveats are the robustness of the on board 128gb flash memory and the notion of this being essentially a throw away box. If it fails you chuck it and buy another. There is no fixing.