Hello? Maybe you missed this.
https://community.roonlabs.com/c/support/nucleus-support
The constant attempt to frame the Nucleus as some kind of “appliance” is really quite amusing.
The definition of an appliance is “A device or instrument designed to perform a specific function”. That is exactly what a Nucleus is.
What is your definition? Can’t wait to be amused…
Seems to be much concern with running Roon on NAS, but I’m very happy with my setup which has many advantages over non-NAS solutions such as NUC, Nucleus or whatever else.
My setup is: (1) Synology DS218+, containing (2) 2 x 10TB Seagate IronWolf (NAS SATA 6Gb/x NCQ 256MB cache) internal hard drives, and alongside a (3) Glyph Atom 275 external SSD via USB. Per Roon’s advice, the Roon core is installed on the external SSD drive, and the library lives on the internal drives. This has been very easy to set up, performing flawlessly, and supports about 20 users accessing a large music library on an endlessly-varied array of playback platforms.
BIG advantages to this setup are:
- Its not limited to hosting my music library. It also hosts a movie library, a TV library (and DVR), a home video library, an audio book library, and a photo library (all via Plex), as well as computer backups for everyone in the household.
- The music library is available OUTSIDE my home network to me and my friends and family (also via Plex).
While I’m a huge fan of Roon as a front end for the music library, its got 2 big limitations: (1) it’s music-only, and (2) its not available outside my LAN.
I like to listen to my music library in my car, and everywhere else – not just at home on my LAN. I also like to share my music library, and other media libraries, with friends and family.
I’m very thankful to Christopher Rieke for creating the ability to run Roon on my Synology NAS. He provides a VITAL service to the Roon community. I wouldn’t be a Roon subscriber if I couldn’t run Roon flawlessly on my Synology NAS.
And finally, a note about redundancy and library management. Although iTunes is no longer a feature-rich library manager, it inspired other softwares that are; like Swinsian, for example. For metadata management, large scale tagging, and general house-keeping, Swinsian is now (due to the demise of iTunes) my library manager of choice. I like to house a main “working copy” of my music library on my laptop – so that I can add and delete music and manage metadata wherever I am. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to automatically shift all library changes to the Synology-bound copy of the music library each night. Again, this is a work flow made dead-simple by the presence of an excellent NAS OS like Synology.
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If you had a nucleus or another dedicated box running Roon core with an internal ssd storing your music files and backup your music to your NAS all of the same advantages you claim would still exist and you’d have a better setup for Roon core.
You can also use cloud sync on your synology to automatically backup your music and other media files offsite to outside cloud storage too.
I assume if you are syncing your music library to and from your NAS and laptop that your library is perhaps not large, maybe not even medium sized. A smaller library and roon on a NAS is not probably going to be an option.
“Better Setup?” – there are no performance issues, even with multiple (2-3) simultaneous users. Having a “dedicated” Roon box would just be more complicated … a solution looking for a problems that don’t exist. If NAS issues are common, I don’t see them; but perhaps its the fact that my Roon core runs on a high-quality external SSD.
Library Size: I don’t know what constitutes S/M/L, but library is aprox 25k tracks, .7TB, mostly ALAC.
This is small, mine is 10x that and still I would think it’s med-large, large You can consider to be over 300k I think. There is a post somewhere about what is what, maybe someone can find it.
NAS’ do not struggle if spec’d and built accordingly. I have been running rooncore on my QNAP TS 251+ for 3 years now. I take USB directly out to a DAC.
This is my roonserver spec/build:
QNAP TS-251+8GB RAM & 2x 2TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD’s
Network swtich: Netgear ProSafe GS105 5-port Gigabit Switch
Teddy Pardo Dual 12v/3a LPSU (modified/upgraded) powering both the above.
Network cables: Lindy Cromo CAT6
Dropping this into the discussion:
Just out of curiosity, someone tried iSCSI on their NAS and attaching this from a separate Roon Core?
Dear Phillips,
you have the same NAS I have and it runs meanwhile very well.
What I have done ist:
- Roon Folder is on a separate SSD Drive (where the Roon database is built)
- I use as fast cache a further SSD Drive for Reading the Volume where all my song files are located
That works now fine for about a year without any drop outs and even for DSD files
Agree. I have a completely different setup than Rajaish, but it is spec’d properly and performs flawlessly. No “struggling.”
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Never seen any issues related to “real-time file watching.” Both Plex and Roon are pretty good at that, with Roon being a bit faster to update. (BlueOS however, is not good at it, but that’s because my library is on a NAS, its because BlueOS must be manually prodded.)
Comparing a NAS to a “local disk” is weird (read “not useful”), because if you’re relying on a “local disk,” then you’re not really getting one of the biggest advantages of the Roon ecosystem, which is library accessibility from a wide variety of nodes (aka, distributed audio). For example in my house, Roon nodes include: Marantz receiver, ELAC powered speaker, iMac, iPhone, laptop, BluSound Node, Sonos Soundbar, Sony TV, Focusrite Clarett A/D, Apple TV and Chromecast.
except, to be clear, and maybe I’m misreading your response, one can have a “local disk” (e.g., a USB drive connected directly to the Roon Server on a NUC or Nucleus, etc.) and then many different endpoints that are being fed from that Roon Server with “local disk” attached. NAS vs Local Disk has nothing to do with having multiple endpoints (i.e., distributed audio).
I have a 4TB USB local drive connected to a NUC running ROCK and can stream music to multiple endpoints in my home, either synchronized or different music to different endpoints.
I will drop this into the discussion:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JQ2F2WG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00
Yeah, that’s a 7.68 TB SSD for $850. I have one in an external USB-C enclosure, connected to my Mac Mini, to hold my movie collection. The write performance is similar to a good HDD, but the read performance is SSD-caliber, which is what matters for Roon.
I don’t care how large your collection is, this should hold it and will be FAST and QUIET. Rest in peace, network attached storage.
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I am not sure what you mean by this comment. The music from the NAS never goes straight to the end point, it is always streamed first to the Roon Core and then back out again to the endpoints. That is why local storage to the Core is, imho, the best option. Fast response, lower network traffic, and less points of failure in the audio chain.
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I agree with buying a dedicated server on which to run the Roon Core. But, I don’t think the Nucleus is the best value and would never consider buying one for myself.
I much prefer the sonicTransporter line if you are looking for an appliance.
If you are computer savvy and don’t mind managing the OS and Roon Core, build your own server and run Linux, Windows, or macOS. You can build this on something as inexpensive as a NUC running ROCK or go all out and build something with HQPlayer.
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You forgot about Roon ROCK on many models of NUC that will be an option too if you are a bit PC hardware savvy.
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No, I did not. Maybe you should read the last sentence of my post…which has not been edited in any way.
But the Nucleus provides a truly ‘turnkey’ solution. This is what drew me to it in the first place.
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