I came across this, and thought it was a great option for a silent Roon Core or end point.
Thoughts?
It looks like a great option. Of course it would need someone to attempt to load ROCK to confirm that but Windows or especially Linux Server should be solid.
Looks nice at first sight, but it lacks an M.2 storage slot, which could be a problem. The typical Roon Core NUC configuration uses M.2 storage for the operating system and Roon library, and stores local music elsewhere, for example in a SATA drive. That’s how I set up my fanless NUC assembly from https://quietpc.co.uk/. Maybe you could put an SSD SATA drive in the Zotac box, with two partitions, one for OS and Roon library, the other for music files.
One drive wouldn’t be a issue for Windows or Linux installs. If ROCK does work on the machine it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship either as the box has four USB3 ports at the rear if you want locally held storage.
You dont need an m2 drive. My non NUC works perfectly fine with sata ssd.
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Yup - M2 NOT needed. I currently use an older Zotzc Mini running an i3 and it was a breeze to install Rock on. Would also like to hear from people using this latest model as it seems ideal and would, on paper, be able to deal with a wide range of DSP activities.
I used my Zotac Z-Box as a core and it worked well for about 6 years. I was running it off my NAS library so it can be glitchy on wireless endpoints (Seqeezebox radios for me) but if you do as others suggest and attach external drive you will be fine.
I have now a Zbox CI662 nano with a 4TB Samsung SSD running Ubuntu Server 20.04.1 as a “portable” Roon Core that I’ve been carrying between two locations I spend my time at. Perfect so far.