Mac + music help

[King Of Dirk]

Howdy friends,

I'm intrigued by the new Mac Mini. I'm also trying to (finally) organize my digital music files in a way that makes sense. Here's what I'd like to do (I think):

- Buy new Mac Mini with smallish hard drive
- Buy external hard drive of epic storage proportions
- Put all music on the external drive
- Use Roon as user interface for managing the music
- Use external DAC and amp for speakers/headphones

Is there any reason storing the files externally won't work? Is there a better way to do what I'm envisioning?

[Bob Ross]

Presume you plan to use your SmartPhone or tablet to navigate/control? Or will you also have a monitor and keyboard hooked up to the Mac?
Yes, there's no reason storing the files externally won't work. You might want to consider a QNAP drive array rather than just a generic hard disc; I believe that is what Roon recommends.

[King Of Dirk]

Thank you for asking - yes, I'd use the Roon app for iPad/iPhone control, but the Mac would have a monitor & keyboard as well. I want to use it for general computing (home/light office use) and music, I doubt it'll see media other than FLAC/ALAC files.

And thank you very much for the storage recommendation!

[maunahaole]

I’m in the midst of migrating my music from a spinning hard drive to a SSD in my mini. I want to save myself the effort of having to rip all the cds to the drive if/when the spinning drive fails, plus I want to bump speed and capacity. I hook the mini to the receive via an hdmi cable which will cover both the audio and video. The tv is a big monitor for when I need it. I pipe my tunes to an outside receiver via the home WiFi and an airport connected to an aux input. I store the music in iTunes and use the apple remote app on phone and tablet to run it. Not exactly what you want to do, but the software and hardware interface stuff is pretty plug and play

[sk_tle]

I'd say a mac mini is probably overkill for such a limited usage but sure it can do the trick and there shouldn't be any issue with using a usb drive.

[sk_tle]

You might want to consider a QNAP drive array rather than just a generic hard disc

At that point no need for a mac mini and roon, play the music directly from the QNAP and use a DAC with an hdmi input.

[Bob Ross]

At that point no need for a mac mini and roon, play the music directly from the QNAP

Isn't one or the other required to actually choose which music to play?

[sk_tle]

Isn't one or the other required to actually choose which music to play?

A regular computer or smartphone is enough for that.

[Bob Ross]

A regular computer or smartphone is enough for that.

ha! okay, I see what you mean. in my mind the Mac mini was his "regular computer"

[rec head]

Regular old HDD's (internal or external) are plenty fast for music. Having a backup is a great idea but SSD is not needed.

For what you want to do even a Raspberry Pi could work.

Is your DAC going to be connected to the computer or just on the LAN? If the DAC is on the LAN it should be possible to push music from a NAS like Qnap directly from an app to the DAC but my experience is that making playlists and managing the library stinks.

I haven't looked at Roon in a long time, It was pretty slick and fairly expensive. If you want to get deep into managing a library or want to try something less expensive there is Jriver Media Center. Free to try JRiver Media Center software Probably a bit more work to setup. It can be controlled by an app once it is setup no need for a monitor for regular playback. Tons of features.

Only somewhat related. I love having a big NAS on my home network. It has become the main storage for all my computers and about 12GB is media is there. Not as safe as a true backup but there I have 1 disc redundancy too.

[sk_tle]

Regular old HDD's (internal or external) are plenty fast for music. Having a backup is a great idea but SSD is not needed.

For what you want to do even a Raspberry Pi could work.

That's what I did. Raspberry Pi Zero W (the smallest form factor) + HiFiBerry DAC board + dedicated housing + free uneaudio software. The raspberry plays file stored remotely (wifi) on my NAS.

[maunahaole]

I agree with the fact that a normal hdd is fast enough for music. I went to ssd as my hd was running low on space and approaching ten years old. I wanted to add space and make that one spot a little less failure prone.

I did the surgery on the Mac today. Went from a 320 HDD to a 1TB SSD and upgraded the ram from 4GB to 16GB. The computer itself runs a good deal faster, faster on boot up, update installation and the applications opening. Noticeable upgrade.

The surgery part was not so bad. I got a hold of the correct little toolkit and followed one of the instruction sets I found online. Lots of little tiny connectors, but everything came apart and went together pretty easily.

[rec head]

Cool. My wife upgraded her old mini to 16Gb and it was a huge improvement in normal usage.