Configuration for new Mac Mini

[Nikko1960]

Hi folks

 

For a little over a year, I have been using an entry-level Mac Mini (1.4GHz i5, 4GB mem, 500GB disk) as a music server that runs Roon & HQPlayer and stores 400GB of music.  HQP plays across ethernet to a uRendu connected to my DAC with a bridge connection facilitating a direct link to the uRendu.  Since the DAC is limited to DSD128, this setup has worked ok, although when I tried using Jussi's new polysinc-xtr filters, I've had to dial them down to the -2s variety.  A local friend that I met through this forum kindly shared over a terabyte of superb music, so I've since invested in a Synology NAS, which works fine.

 

Sadly, this weekend, the Mac Mini's HD died, leaving me bereft of music.  Of course, such events are an upgrade opportunity but I have to be stealthy.  The command bunker objects to me spending money on (in her eyes) "worthless hifi", so I went browsing on the Apple Store and found an incredible bargain in their refurbished store - a 2014 Mac Mini 3Ghz i7 with 8GB mem and 1TB disk, for just £812.  It arrives on Friday and she won't know the difference from the old one which, with a new HD fitted, will be donated to the eldest son's university kit come September.

 

I've read elsewhere that folks optimise their Mac Mini servers by creating an OSX boot disk on an SD card in order to dismount Mac Mini's internal HD & power down SATA in the quest for a quieter system. I have bought a Lexar Pro 2000x 32GB (300MB/sec) for this purpose, and have loaded OS/X Sierra onto it as a boot volume.

 

The question I have is this.  I know through the process of creating the SD boot card that it runs like a snail on Valium.  This doesn't really matter for loading Roon & HQplayer into memory on system initialisation.  But is it feasible to have the Roon database running on an SD card or is that also loaded into memory?  Does anyone have any advice/guidance please?  It wouldn't be the end of the world to run everything off the 1TB HD, but I'd rather optimise for quietness if its at all possible.

 

Thanks!

 

Nikko

[watercourse]

Hi Nikko,

 

I have a mid-2010 Mac Mini, which I either boot from an SDXC card or from the internal SSD. I had used a 32GB SDHC card for a year, but recently got a 64GB SanDisk Extreme Pro card (one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J5RHD58/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

 

The difference between the SDXC and SDHC is night and day. The SDXC boot up is just a bit slower than the SSD, but zippy nonetheless. I have 16GB RAM as well, running Yosemite.

 

Rather than installing the OS to the SD card, I created an image of the SSD setup, and restored to the SDXC card and was up and running in about 40 minutes. No stability issues with the SD card bootup.

 

HTH! Wilson

[Nikko1960]

I have an update, in case anyone is interested...

 

The new Mac Mini arrived today and I plumbed it in as before, with bridged internet/thunderbolt port to allow a direct connection to my uRendu.

 

I can confirm that it is possible to index more than a terabyte of music in Roon onto the SD card, and then boot OSX, Roon and HQPlayer directly off the SD card.  Performance of Roon is better than before (although I put that down to the faster 3GHz i7 processor plus another 4gig RAM).  Most importantly, I can now dismount the internal SATA drive for quieter operation.

 

The faster processor has allowed me to switch from poly-sinc-xtr-2s to the native poly-sinc-xtr filter in HQP without stuttering, although the cooling fan on the Mini runs continuously now so the cpu load must be much greater.

 

I also upgraded the OS on the uRendu to v2.5.

 

Sadly, I did all of this at once so I'm not sure how to attribute the SQ improvement to the individual changes made.  But I can report that the upgrade to SQ is considerable.  

 

I will now sign up to the uRendu clock upgrade now that the Sonore folks have confirmed that their UK disti can perform the work locally.

 

TTFN and happy listening.

 

Nikko