Ah, I always thought NFTS was prone to corruption…
I’m working with an Intel NUC, so I don’t have a huge amount of storage options within the NUC due to its size. It has an NVME SSD but it’s only 256 GB. It does say it has an M.2 Slot that can be used for more storage, but I don’t know anything about that. (https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/147472/intel-nuc-8-home-a-mini-pc-with-windows-10-nuc8i5bekpa.html).
EDIT: it seems the 256 g ssd is already IN the M2 slot.
Terracopy and it’s brethren can optimize transfers slightly but you can’t get around hard numbers, specifically IOPS. Hard drives have, at best, around 100-120 IOPS max. SSDs on the other hand, can do 40,000-100,000 IOPS. HDD’s are great for bulk storage, such as your plex library, for your metadata you really should be using an SSD, they’re incredibly cheap, and even a modemst 6Gbps SATA ssd will give you substantially better performance, in fact I guarantee you will notice it in your client UI…posters load faster, libraries load faster, you will definitely notice moving to an SSD from a Hard drive.
NTFS is a remarkably rich and resilient filesystem.
I always think it’s interesting when people have different “tech legends” than I do - different experiences and stories.
Yes. And they’re cheap. And I think you’ll be way happier with your Plex metadata performance. It makes a significant difference even just browsing the library.
Edit: There’s a list of tested compatible devices on Intel’s NUC pages. It looks like a wide variety of things are known to work.
100% agree, although we also REALLY need to get away from sqlite and support things like mysql/Mariadb, i really wish I could have a live replication of plex database, at least I have 3 day backups, but alas PLex doesn’t want to support external databases.
Yes the metadata should be stored in the database rather than hundreds/thousands of Xml files, and using jpgs could probably be optimized by moving to png or webp or something more compact, the metadata is kind of a mess.
SQLite is amazing, and I’ll fight anybody who says otherwise. 
This reminds me - I’ve been meaning to look at the Plex blobs database. I’m curious what Plex stores in there, but I’ve never actually looked.
I don’t disagree re sqlite vs mysql, however consider that pms runs on low powered nas devices and the shield, where sqlite excels and a full blown database would not only use more storage but cpu/ram.
An optional/advanced external DB, like how kodi does it, would be welcome though.
If we are talking about the Plex data folder, NTFS is a must.
Reformat the drive to NTFS, or you won’t see many posters in your Plex library.
My personal opinion: avoid external drives.
Unless your server is a laptop or in an ultra-tiny case, add internal drives. If there’s no drive bay left, get a PCI card with a SSD m.2 slot on it. Even if it’s not an nvme slot. it’s still much better than an externally connected mechanical drive per USB.
Hello Billblue,
If you have SATA drives, wich is probably most the case because SSD is no go for archiving because of the cost, calculate almots 1 to 2 days.
Note: This is theoric calculation on HARD DRIVES in your computer and not a NAS.
This is theoric calculation. Zipping movies, tv shows is waste of time.
Thanx. Regards.
Ah yes - I guess that’s where the current SSD for the operating system is already installed. I don’t think I can add another one - I was under the assumption that there was another expansion M2 slot - I don’t think there is, the documentation says that this is where the current SSD is installed - I just didn’t read carefully. It would be nice to replace it with a 1 TB SSD but I’m not sure if it’s easy to migrate one drive to another - I’m not going through the nightmare of redoing my entire PC again just to switch the OS drive to a bigger one.
Thanks for the info - but it’s an Intel NUC and it’s very tiny: I don’t think I can add any internal drives (besides the NVME SSD port, which is already occupied with the OS). It has a Thunderbolt connection on the rear however.
Will a MicroSD or standard SD card give similar results to an SSD? Or an external SSD via Thunderbolt, rather than USB 3.0?
Shame there isn’t another internal slot.
No, SD isn’t intended for fast random rewrite IO operations, and typically has a surprisingly low lifespan. And good SD is almost as expensive as a USB SSD would be.
My dislike for external USB HDDs is pretty high too. They have lousy controllers that behave poorly, get disconnected, they either draw power from USB or they have unreliable power bricks of their own. Some of it might be unfair because USB 2 was bad in general - USB 3 IS better.
I have a better opinion of name brand USB 3 SSDs. I’m downright neutral about it. 
Thank you for your information. I appreciate it. Looks like I’ll have to dedicate quite a bit of time to do this. I might try to use two disc docks and double up my output.
Do NOT use a microsd or SD card. That’s worse than a SATADOM. They have limited write cycles, poor random IO, etc. You will trash the micro/sd card and not get any performance out of it. You can’t upgrade the internal SSD to a larger one? using a usb key with something like ubuntu, you can use DD to image your existing drive off to an external, replace the drive, DD it back, then expand the filesystem (assuming you’re using linux for the OS, if you have windows DD would still work for the base image, but i’ve never tried expanding NTFS partitions with linux tools). SD cards are great for sequential transfer but their random performance is garbage (even the SDXC or whatever cards, they’re much better but still bad).
^^^ 100% this
That’s an understatement. Yes, because SD is only suitable as a modern floppy, for sneakernet. And also because the first few generations of SATADOM I used were bonkers - they were high-end SLC. 
For what it’s worth, Windows actually makes expanding volumes super easy these days too, including the boot partition.
If you don’t want to replace the internal boot drive, a USB 3 external SSD is a great option for the Plex metadata.
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