David, I live in Melbourne and have been a Roon user for several years. After running it on my Mac for a while, gradually moved to a Synology server for the music and I expected, also, to run Roon on that, only to find Synology, at that time, anyway, did not have the CPU grunt for Roon. Voilà the NUC. I have a second one running Windows for a couple of tasks that I still use Windows for. I recommend that you scout eBay and other places for a second hand NUC. If you need to add more memory or a bigger SSD, that’s easy. They will still be available. This will get you to where you want to go. I play my music on my MacBook Pro on my desk and on an Auralic 4-stack G2.1 “DAC” in my living area and run them grouped, which means I can simply move what’s playing from one place to the other. Roon does not provide a perfect syncing of the two (it would be nice if they did), but it’s a minor task to switch it.
FYI, I chose the Synology because they have a proprietary approach to RAID 5, which allows me to run a mix of drive sizes in the server, which standard RAID 5 does not support.
Enough… Simply, a second hand NUC will do just fine. If it works, it works.
Richard
Thanks Richard,
I have all my FLAC files on a QNAP 4 bay NAS and have been running it and previous QNAP devices for years.
I initially thought I might be able to run ROON on it but while it is well specc’d, its not up there with a NUC so decided against it.
I’ve ordered a NUC (on the supported list i5) and expect to get it this coming week. Its a bit more expensive but I like the idea of a dedicated device for Roon core. I have some SONOS gear but mainly use traditional Amp/Speaker setups. I’ll get the NUC running ROCK first and need to work out the connections then … its a shame that ROON doesnt integrate with Spotify, otherwise I could completely move across to ROON … I still may but will need to move to TIDAL as I understand it
Thanks for that. This supports my decision … NUC first, then work it out later
Im in Victoria, have been running my Roon instance on a Mac mini and also on a Mac Studio. Either work well. If you run it on a Mac Mini order a 16GB version.
Hi David,
I’ve been using ROON for several years (in Sydney). I have a large-ish collection of FLAC files that was on a NAS, but I’m running ROON core on a (series 1) Mac mini (M1) with an attached large flash drive that holds the library.
It’s been impeccable supporting some ROON-ready devices (NAD + BluSound) and a legacy SONOS network for all that time. I’ve never seen any need to “update” to a dedicated device to run ROON core (aka Server) or storage.
Can’t say enough good things about it. I’m not paid to say this (but…you know, if anyone wanted to offer money…
).
I’m an IT guy of 25 years standing, and am confident in saying that the compute requirements to get a really good ROON setup going are pretty minimal (the only thing that’s really critical is your local network if you are multi-room and your ISP if you’re …well…just about anybody).
Hope this helps.
Steve
(PS: you might find a lot of argument here - or any other “audiophile” forum - about the details - but I’ve found very simple foundation with good end-points is the most important thing)
Was with TIDAL (for years, because of MQA…I know…don’t say it). Would definitely recommend Qobuz…pays artists better, better range of 44.1/16kHz + FLAC streams. Most at 96/24 and above.
Steve.
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