[sonicxtc]

I'm finally moving up in the world to an NAA, specifically a stom sms-200. I will likely consider ROON, too. Since not much changes faster than computer technology and PRIME day starts tonight, I'm seeking NAS recommendations, please. OR, please chime in if you think a desktop/laptop can serve NAS duties just as well as a NAS. My library is 3.7 tb  and fits on a 4tb hdd. I think a total of 6tb will suffice for quite some time.

My understanding is that for ROON SERVER (resource hog) should be on a separate computer and not a traditional NAS. [I have a couple of such computers available including a mac mini with i5 and 8gb RAM].

Thank you for sharing.

[MttBsh]

I run JRiver on my HP desktop computer with all of my music files on an external drive. I use a Sonore Microrendu connected to the network by Ethernet cable, which in turn feeds my DAC by USB. JRemote on my iPad is extremely convenient for playing my music.

In my setup I would be somewhat surprised if using a separate server (other than my desktop) would provide any advantages.

[richidoo]

PC performance as a fileserver may not be as extreme as a high end NAS which is optimized for that task, but it is better than the cheap NASs and more than adequate for streaming high resolution music files.

Since you can put Roon Core anywhere on the network, you can put an internal HDD in it for music and keep the noisy bits together in an isolated place, and save the money of buying a separate fileserver (NAS.) NAS has the advantage of being easy to run RAID array for data redundancy. Not always easy to do in PCs, but it's certainly possible. If you want data redundancy for your music collection, I would recommend you just could use your USB drive to host a backup of the music library with daily incremental backup.

My Roon Core machine is i3 3.6Ghz w 8GB RAM and it runs fast enough for me. I only run upsampling DSP right now. Your i5 will allow you to do more DSP without slowing the GUI.

On a computer doing as much complex tasks as running Roon and whatever other apps for backups and music software, I'd prefer to have it running Windows 10 than Linux, only because I don't know how to administer Linux and much of the consumer audiophile software is available for Windows. Linux the OS on the high performance (i5) NASs that are capable of hosting Roon Core. ymmv

[jpm]

Some key questions:

- What are your budget parameters?
- How much data (including music) do you have to store?
- Do you prefer to set it up and forget it or do you enjoy being more hands on with technology?
- Do you want the storage solution to be multi-function or single purpose (i.e. Roon server & Plex)

[I.Greyhound Fan]

I use a laptop with an I7 6700HQ and 16gb ram with a 4TB western digital red external hard drive all connected to my DAC.  I can run HQ Player, JRiver and Bug Head Infinity Blade.  I remote in with another laptop using a free program called Splash Top.  Although I am going to go with a headless unit to replace the laptop and just remote in.  It is simple, cheap and sounds good.

[brj]

At 3.7 TB, I'd guess that you're in the realm of 5000-6000 tracks.  That's loafing territory for Roon, and you could likely run it on the NAS directly (if it's a supported model) just fine.  If you had hundreds of thousands of tracks, then you'd definitely want to be more particular in your hardware selection.  The one caveat would be if you want to make heavy use of the DSP engine that was enabled in Roon 1.3.

Roon FAQ: What are the minimum requirements?

(I have Roon running on a maxed out 2012 2.6 GHz quad-core i7 Mac Mini, but that's to support my heavy use of HQPlayer, which I have convolving impulse response filters at high resolutions in addition to upsampling, and not Roon itself.  If not for my use of HQP, I'd likely move Roon back on to my Synology NAS.)

[JohnR]

I'm finally moving up in the world to an NAA, specifically a stom sms-200. I will likely consider ROON, too. Since not much changes faster than computer technology and PRIME day starts tonight, I'm seeking NAS recommendations, please. OR, please chime in if you think a desktop/laptop can serve NAS duties just as well as a NAS. My library is 3.7 tb  and fits on a 4tb hdd. I think a total of 6tb will suffice for quite some time.

My understanding is that for ROON SERVER (resource hog) should be on a separate computer and not a traditional NAS. [I have a couple of such computers available including a mac mini with i5 and 8gb RAM].

Thank you for sharing.

FWIW I think Roon tend to exaggerate their hardware requirements in order to avoid support overhead from people trying to run it on outdated hardware. If I were you I would just plug the drive into the i5 mini and see how it goes. (If the mini doesn't have an SSD boot drive, then put one in.)