A definitive backup guide?

General Discussions
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I have been using Plex media server for years and love it. What I don’t like, is the documentation for the advance user.

I’ve been wanting to upgrade my media server (Synology) and the hard drives in the server but have hesitated because I am not totally sure on how to backup, THEN reinstall all of the Plex server settings AND the movie info and edits (like customized cover art and movie description changes).

If you read the Plex support documents things aren’t really too clear in what needs to be backed up and how to reinstall these backups.

Can anyone point me to a recent 3rd party definitive guide on how to backup both the Plex settings AND the changes I have made to my collection metadata and how to reinstall these settings to a CLEAN INSTALL of Plex server.

Thanks in advance.

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See @

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Thanks for the quick response. I scanned over the Linux Tut you sent me, and there is some good info in there in relation to my original post.

I’m just dumbfounded why Plex developers haven’t (or won’t) implement an easier way to do this.

I’m no novice when it comes to servers and networking but I’m not sure why all this info is so fragmented and never really clearly explained in one place.

I put a lot of work into my media server and I don’t like the idea of loosing all that info (not media files, just the settings and changes to the metadata I have made since I’m not totally sure that the backup I’m doing is correct).

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There is no reason to be dumbfounded; It’s a hard problem to solve.

It’s not a slam dunk solution.

  1. Performing backups of the entire Plex dataset requires PMS be OFFLINE
  2. Synology notification of backup success or failure is not guaranteed for 3rd party apps.
  3. Some users have a few GB of data while others have 100+ GB of data.
  4. Where they choose to write that backup is wide open.

In DSM 7, whenever it stabilizes, I plan to release a GUI selection which does the backup for you.

To show you how limited Synology is:

I will only able to provide the GUI interface to you during package install, update, or uninstall. That is all Synology has provided to us at the package level.

Sure, you can export the database from PMS and Yes, I will be able to re-import that database as part of installation but it will still be up to you to launch a media scan and allow it to generate all the metadata.

Regardless, it won’t be integrated into Synology notification initially (or possibly ever).

We have the Syno FAQ and Linux Tips

There is so much work I would love to do but it’s not possible as 3rd party.

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