Article: Review | Running a Large Roon Library on a QNAP TVS-872XT

[The Computer Audiophile]

10 minutes ago, MarkS said:

Any thoughts on SQ running Roon on the QNAP vs. a Nucleus?

I’ve been running Roon (with a bunch of DSP) on a top spec’d (as of 2 years ago) SonicTransporter, and it is rock solid. I toyed with Roon on my Synology NAS just for fun and had some problems. 

I haven’t found any sonic differences with Roon core running inside the NAS out outside on a Roon ROCK NUC. I do t have a nucleus. 

[Kal Rubinson]

38 minutes ago, Yop1403 said:

in general, the hardware of QNAP is great (they are using pretty recent CPUs), in regards to software I find them a bit crappy. Had my old Synology run over months without a need to restart. That‘s definitely not possible on my QNAP, needs to be restarted every ca. 2 weeks – everytime it starts to slow down and lag with certain tasks...

I am not a technician nor do I run Roon on them but my 4 QNAP drives never need to be rebooted except for system updates.

[afrancois]

Hi Chris,

 

It uncanny how much your system resembles mine! I've been using the same QNAP for 8 months now. It's a powerhouse and I also use it for Roon. As you, I have a fiber connection. I'm using an Ubiquity XG-16 and several XP-10's to get complete isolation. My library is half the size of yours and I also get the occasional slow-downs. I don't reboot the QNAP, but every 2 or 3 weeks I restart the Roon app.

My 872 is connected on 3 separate VLAN's, one specifically for music, the other for IOT and security camera's and the third one for all the rest.

It's the perfect solution for me, not the least because of solid backup and the use of RAID-0 and RAID-5. The Roon db is on RAID-0 and the music on RAID-5.

Switching from a powerful NUC to the 872 didn't degrade the sound quality. I no longer have any powerful computers  (that use switch mode power supplies) nearby my HiFi equipment and that's a good thing.

One last thing I've upgraded the memory to 32GB on the 872.

I to be complete save I occasionally backup everything on a TR-004

[The Computer Audiophile]

12 minutes ago, afrancois said:

Hi Chris,

 

It uncanny how much your system resembles mine! I've been using the same QNAP for 8 months now. It's a powerhouse and I also use it for Roon. As you, I have a fiber connection. I'm using an Ubiquity XG-16 and several XP-10's to get complete isolation. My library is half the size of yours and I also get the occasional slow-downs. I don't reboot the QNAP, but every 2 or 3 weeks I restart the Roon app.

My 872 is connected on 3 separate VLAN's, one specifically for music, the other for IOT and security camera's and the third one for all the rest.

It's the perfect solution for me, not the least because of solid backup and the use of RAID-0 and RAID-5. The Roon db is on RAID-0 and the music on RAID-5.

Switching from a powerful NUC to the 872 didn't degrade the sound quality. I no longer have any powerful computers  (that use switch mode power supplies) nearby my HiFi equipment and that's a good thing.

One last thing I've upgraded the memory to 32GB on the 872

Wow. Very similar. 
 

I love my UniFi stuff. USG Pro > fiber > XG 16 > fiber > Sonore opticalRendu. 
 

I turned the USG Pro WAN2 port into LAN so I can run fiber to everything internal. Not sure why they only have SFP ports for the WAN on that router. 

[afrancois]

2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Wow. Very similar. 
 

I love my UniFi stuff. USG Pro > fiber > XG 16 > fiber > Sonore opticalRendu. 
 

I turned the USG Pro WAN2 port into LAN so I can run fiber to everything internal. Not sure why they only have SFP ports for the WAN on that router. 

I only use Unify stuff for the WiFi AP’s, the rest are Edgeswitches and router. The Unify controller is running on the 872

[Ran]

17 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Indeed.  The same tasks that strain the CPU under Roon generally run easily under JRMC.

 

 

I don't use JRMC but I have bench-marked Roon Vs. MinimServer on a Syology 1513+ NAS. In every aspect, like CPU, Memory, I/O, etc.. Roon failed miserably.

[The Computer Audiophile]

21 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

I don't use JRMC but I have bench-marked Roon Vs. MinimServer on a Syology 1513+ NAS. In every aspect, like CPU, Memory, I/O, etc.. Roon failed miserably.

Isn't that like benchmarking apples and crackers? They do extremely different things.

[Ran]

9 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Isn't that like benchmarking apples and crackers? They do extremely different things.

 

The comparison was (among other things):

 

1. Initial scan time of the library

2. Memory consumption at the end of the scan

3. CPU utilization during incremental scans

4. CPU utilization during playing a track

5. Service readiness since start up

6. Memory consumption over time

 

The above are identical to many applications that index music libraries.  

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

 

The comparison was (among other things):

 

1. Initial scan time of the library

2. Memory consumption at the end of the scan

3. CPU utilization during incremental scans

4. CPU utilization during playing a track

5. Service readiness since start up

6. Memory consumption over time

 

The above are identical to many applications that index music libraries.  

Roon is incredibly different when it does those things. It also doesn't need incremental scans. Music is automatically seen without a scan. The initial scan does so much more than just scan. 

 

These are two extremely dissimilar apps. 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Roon is incredibly different when it does those things. It also doesn't need incremental scans. Music is automatically seen without a scan. The initial scan does so much more than just scan. 

 

These are two extremely dissimilar apps. 

 

It does not matter. Roon can mine bitcoins in the background as far as I am concerned. The fact is that Roon is extremely memory / CPU intensive application.

[The Computer Audiophile]

23 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

It does not matter. Roon can mine bitcoins in the background as far as I am concerned. The fact is that Roon is extremely memory / CPU intensive application.

That's quite irrational.

 

Roon must do mush more intensive operations to offer people all the features it offers. Add those to MinimServer and you'd have the same thing. 

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

That's quite irrational.

 

Roon must do mush more intensive operations to offer people all the features it offers. Add those to MinimServer and you'd have the same thing. 

 

Let's look at this from a different perspective and a bit more rational, if you may. The fact that you reboot your NAS daily speak volumes about the efficiency of the software. If you really want to geek out into this, run a performance monitor tool to see what's going on in the background. (Hint... it's not pretty). Lavish GUI aside, you need to look into a software's ability to scale and scale well and Roon's ability at this is lacking. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

Let's look at this from a different perspective and a bit more rational, if you may. The fact that you reboot your NAS daily speak volumes about the efficiency of the software. If you really want to geek out into this, run a performance monitor tool to see what's going on in the background. (Hint... it's not pretty). Lavish GUI aside, you need to look into a software's ability to scale and scale well and Roon's ability at this is lacking. 

I'm with you, but comparing a Toyota Camry to an Airstream Trailer isn't helpful.

 

If there was another app that did what Roon does, then comparisons would be great. Instead we just have to look at the pros and cons of what we get for the utilization footprint and decide if it's OK with us. 

 

Minim doesn't do much. Even if it ran on a Raspberry Pi I couldn't use it as my sole server. 

[bobfa]

I find this VERY interesting.   Why QNAP?  What about Synology, or others?  

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I find this VERY interesting.   Why QNAP?  What about Synology, or others?  

Hi Bob, I've used QNAP, Synology, FreeNAS, openMediaVault, and many others over the years. In my experience QNAP has the best hardware and equal software to Synology. The others are more DIY solutions that can be equally as valid if the user wants to go that route. Roon installs very easily on QNAP and people can just add to cart if they want to go this route. 

 

Perhaps I need to work on an article for those of us who have fun putting together all the pieces of the puzzle and messing with the software. Roon can be a little harder to install on such devices though. 

 

If someone isn't using Roon core on the NAS, then the options open up even more. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi @Ran I thought I knew what system you used for storage and streaming, but I can't remember. I believe you're a big fan of DLNA etc... correct? What are you using for software and hardware? I'm interested and others may find it helpful. I know you have a ton of knowledge in this area. 

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi @Ran I thought I knew what system you used for storage and streaming, but I can't remember. I believe you're a big fan of DLNA etc... correct? What are you using for software and hardware? I'm interested and others may find it helpful. I know you have a ton of knowledge in this area. 

 

I currently use Synology 1513+ with MinimServer / MinimStreamer installed serving 11355 albums in FLAC. I use RaspberryPi with MPD / UpMPDcli as the OpenHome streamer which is connected to a Hegel H590 via coax. BubbleUPnP is used on my phone (Pixel2) and Tablet (Amazon Fire). Qobuz is my streaming service of choice. ELAC FS 409 are the speakers. 

[R1200CL]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

The fact is that Roon is extremely memory / CPU intensive application.

I totally disagree !

 

[robbbby]

@The Computer Audiophile was there a reason you chose a 500GB drive for the roon software/database?  It looks like a 250GB drive should be more than adequate?

[davide256]

On 6/12/2020 at 2:38 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

It’s a solution I can control. It’s either reboot or don’t use Roon. 

 

 

 

 

I do. The above DSP was only a test. 

I'm wondering; have you tried repointing Roon to a different Roon core then bringing it back to the QNAP? That doesn't lose your scanned library but should

reset session data.

[daverich4]

I'm a little surprised at the results you're getting on a machine that I THINK is less capable than mine. I run Roon on a 2014 Mac Mini, 3GHz i7, 16 gig RAM and a 500 gig SSD. I have hundreds of DSD64 files ripped from SACDs and when using Convolution filters made for me by Home Audio Fidelity along with a Low Pass Parametric Filter my setup is just on the edge of not working. When I hit play on a DSD64 file it takes a second or two for the music to start playing. Watching the monitor in Roon it's almost like the music is spooling up. It starts out at about 0.5X and ends up with the music playing at about 1.2X. If I let the music play it's fine for the rest of the album but if I skip a song Roon spools up the music again before continuing on. I just tried playing a DSD64 file and under Convolution Roon says it's using 4 paths and 2984k taps which I believe is far fewer than you said you were using. Everything else about Roon works as expected and I'm very happy with it. Turning off Convolution immediately solves the problem but I much prefer the sound with it on. This too is a First World problem but I wouldn't mind knowing what spec I need to upgrade on my computer to get rid of the delay.

[DuckToller]

On 6/12/2020 at 5:47 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

I wish I had a multichannel DAC

... dreaming about a multi-channel Wilson setup ?

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, robbbby said:

@The Computer Audiophile was there a reason you chose a 500GB drive for the roon software/database?  It looks like a 250GB drive should be more than adequate?

The 500 GB drive was half the price of the 250 GB drive. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

12 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

... dreaming about a multi-channel Wilson setup ?

Ever since Pearl Jam released its new album Gigaton in Dolby Atmos, I’ve been considering it!

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, davide256 said:

I'm wondering; have you tried repointing Roon to a different Roon core then bringing it back to the QNAP? That doesn't lose your scanned library but should

reset session data.

I haven’t done that. 
 

Please educate me on what happens when that is done.