External Portable Hard Drives

General Discussions
1

Hi Everyone, I’m new to Plex (and LOVING it) so I apologise if this subject has been touched on before! I have some media on my internal hard drive but the majority of my content (films, TV shows etc) is on a 1TB external hard drive. If I upload my content from there onto my Plex Server - will the information that it finds (posters, info etc) still be available after I’ve unplugged the hard drive and then plugged it in again at a later date? Sorry if that doesn’t make any sense! Basically - I’m a merchant seaman so I have my hard drives to keep me entertained whilst at sea. However they’re not always plugged into my Mac so I’m wondering if the information will still come up when I plug them in (assuming the info itself is stored on the internal hard drive of the computer itself). Any advice is hugely appreciated!
Thanks, Mike

2

This should work, if you take care of 2 things:

  1. never rename any of your media files and folders on the external disk, once they have been ‘matched’ in Plex

  2. switch off the following option:
    Settings - Server - Library - ‘Empty trash automatically after every scan’

3

@OttoKerner said:
This should work, if you take care of 2 things:

  1. never rename any of your media files and folders on the external disk, once they have been ‘matched’ in Plex

  2. switch off the following option:
    Settings - Server - Library - ‘Empty trash automatically after every scan’

I understand the 2nd point, so that the information stays in Plex, so to speak, but the first option – “never rename files once they have been matched” – makes me wonder why it would be a rule for an external disk, but not for an internal disk.

I’m positive I have renamed files on an external drive with no nasty side effects. Plex has recognized the name change the same way, that is, the name of the file seems to be all that’s updated, and it’s not added as a new item or duplicate. Maybe I have just had good luck.

4

@leelynds
I think he might be referring to do not rename files when the HDD is disconnected from Plex

5

@leelynds said:
…but the first option – “never rename files once they have been matched” – makes me wonder why it would be a rule for an external disk, but not for an internal disk.

Of course you can do that. But since OP is a Plex newbie, I didn’t want to overwhelm him with information.
If you rename files, it requires a library update. Which will be relatively painless if your files follow the naming conventions. But if they do not (and maybe you used an unhealthy amount of ‘Fix Incorrect Match’) then the results of a rename are “inconvenient”, to say the least.

6

thanks, just confirming. Occasionally I find a file that’s not exactly right and my OCD kicks in, even though it’s matched properly. :smiley: