ROON ROCK now available

[tategoi]

Thats a good point. But short of buying another M.2, I will use the existing 2.5" for the ROCK and M.2 for storage. 

I had flashed the ROCK to a flash drive. Now I can't figure out how to proceed from here:

Linux Command Line
Uncompress your .img.gz file by running gzip -d roonbox-linuxx64-nuc3-usb-factoryreset.img.gz, which will leave you with a .img file.
Plug in your USB flash drive (it must be larger than the factory reset image size -- 1GB is more than enough).
Run sudo dmesg to determine the device name given to your USB flash drive. It will be something like /dev/sdb.
Unmount any directory your flash drive was mounted to.
Run sudo dd bs=10485760 if=roonbox-linuxx64-nuc3-usb-factoryreset.img of=/dev/sdb (replace “sdb” with the appropriate device name). This can take a few minutes, depending on the speed of your USB flash drive.

Where or how do I run those Linux command line in Mac or Windows?

[baddog]

You do not need to do any of that. Follow the directions here to create a USB Drive to install ROCK.

By the way you are better off using the M.2 drive for ROCK and the SSD for music, I assume the SSD is larger in capacity?

Rock Install Guide:

https://kb.roonlabs.com/ROCK_Install_Guide

For initial install you need a monitor and keyboard attached so you can go into BIOS, update as required and change a few settings.

This also details how to make a USB drive to install ROCK.


Updating and Configuring BIOS:

https://kb.roonlabs.com/ROCK:_Updating_a...n_Your_NUC

Give yourself and hour or so to become familiar with what you need to do and keep these instructions on hand as you do the initial install.

I am not a LINUX expert either and you do not need to be for this install.

BTW those instruction you posted you can ignore, you want to use the ones right before them:

Windows / Mac OS / Linux
Plug in your USB flash drive (it must be larger than the factory reset image size -- 1GB is more than enough).
Download and install Etcher from https://etcher.io/
Start Etcher
From the Etcher application interface, select your .img.gz file as "the image"
From the Etcher application interface, select your USB flash drive as "the drive"
Click on "Flash!"

[baddog]

After you make the FLASH drive you do the following:

Turn off your NUC.
Unplug any USB storage you might have plugged into it. You can plug it back in after your install.
Insert the USB flash drive you prepared earlier into the front of the NUC
Turn on the NUC and press the F10 key on your keyboard. Continue to hold the F10 key down until you appear at a menu that is asking you which device you'd like to boot from.
Select the USB flash drive.
Follow the instructions to install Roon OS. This procedure can take a few minutes, depending on the performance of your USB flash drive and the SSD to which you are installing.
Once it is done installing, unplug the USB flash drive and hit ENTER to reboot.
On next boot, don't hold F10, so it can boot from the SSD. A few seconds later, you should be booted up and see a message related to your network status.

[tategoi]

Ah OK! Thanks baddog!

Both drives are the same - Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB, one is M.2 and there other 2.5". When I installed the ROCK, both are showing exactly the same name: 250 GB, Samsung SSD 850  I have to take a 50-50 chance, yep I got it right! Is there an advantage using the M.2?

.

[baddog]

M.2 is usually faster than an SSD drive, thus a better choice to run the operating system and store the Roon database.

[tategoi]

I didn't backup and my database is now gone. I can always rebuild it again from scratch. But I can't remember the settings I had previously.

In Settings>Setup, whats the optimum for Memory for Photos/Artwork? My default is 512MB.

Library>Import Settings, I opt all for Prefer Woon or Prefer Best.
Library>Background Audio Analysis Speed = Throttled (less fan noise?)
Library>On-Demand Audio Analysis Speed = Fast

Are there any setting that I need to set for best SQ? I read about buffering, where do I find that? Whats the optimum value?

[baddog]

@tategoi -

How big is your library, i.e. # of tracks?

I have ~ 31,000k tracks

I have it set at 256MB memory for Photos/Artwork. I wouldn't expect you would have any issue setting it to 512MB.

Library -> Import Settings - this would depend on how much time you have invested in tagging your library, if minimal go with the Roon default.

For myself as I invested a fair amount of time in tagging, I went with Roon expect for Artwork )prefer best), Labels (prefer file)

Library = Background Audio Analysis - should always be set to throttled. The only time you would set otherwise is during your first import of all your music, then choose 1-4 cores depending on your computer if you want to have Roon focus on doing audio analysis at the expense of music playback.

Library - -> On demand Audio Analysis - I would set this to throttled as well. Though no impact if one sets it to Fast.

You can find buffering in Audio, locate your Devialet in the Network list, then choose it, select the wheel gears to the right of it, and choose "Device Setup".

Now click the Playback Tab, and you can set your Buffer Size. Since I have both the NUC, NAS, and Devialet all connected via ethernet to my switch, and because it has been very stable and reliable, my buffer size is small and set to 50ms. You could start there and adjust higher if you are getting dropouts.

[tategoi]

Thanks. Oh I missed the settings at Audio section completely. I did not experience any dropout since the ROCK upgrade yesterday. I guess I should just leave everything to default?

[baddog]

If everything is working, and you are happy with the results, then yes I would leave at the default settings.

[SquiggFSM]

What type of M.2 SSD are folks using for the boot drive? Is there any point in going NVME?

I'm looking at 4 options at the mo:

£51.70
M.2 SSD
120GB WD Green - Read 540MB/s - Write 430MB/s

£63.49
M.2 NVME
128GB Samsung PM961 - Read 3000MB/s - Write 650MB/s

£91.49
M.2 NVME
120GB Corsair Force MP500 - Read 3000MB/s - Write 2400MB/s - Not sure of the durability on this one, and if it's more about the IOPS than the MB/s this one is definitely out

£119.03
M.2 NVME
250GB Samsung 960 Evo - Read 3100MB/s - Write 1500MB/s - I know it's far too big, but its the smallest of this model they make