Hard disk full (directory Databases and Media very large)

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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Server Version#: 1.28.1.6104
Player Version#:

Hello,

So far I have been able to fix all my problems with Google Search but I can’t find a solution for my current problem.
I am using DeepL to describe my problem in English.
I have the current PlexServer version running on a Raspberry Pi 4 with an SSD hard drive. The SSD drive is 120GB and I have my movies on an external hard drive.
I now found out that the SSD harddisk is full and therefore no update of the system and the PlexServer is possible anymore

The largest directories are:

57GB
/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Databases

40GB
/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Media

9.1GB
/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata

Is there any way to free up some space here, or does Plex really need all that space?

Thanks for the help

Translated with DeepL

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You can move your database backups (the files with suffixes of the form YYYY-MM-DD)

Put them someplace safe for now until you’re sure you’ve recovered from this ok.

After doing so,

I do urge determining why it’s so big.

  1. Empty Trash
  2. Clean bundles
  3. Optimize Database (will shrink the actual DB size)
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There are many databases in the directory. The oldest one is from 2020.
Can I delete old databases in the first step?
The most recent database is about 230MB.

How can I?

  1. Empty Trash
  2. Clean bundles
  3. Optimize Database (will shrink the actual DB size)
4

Show me the listing please?

Deleting the *.db files is bad.
Deleting the *.db-YYYY-MM-DD backup files is ok.

5

Go into the settings (little wrench top right)

Click Libraries
Hover over the 3 dots on the right of every library and click empty trash. I don’t know if there’s a way to do it for all libraries at once, maybe Chuck can help with that.

Libraries
Libraries594×526 72.4 KB

Then in the settings go into troubleshooting to optimize database and clean bundles

troubleshooting
troubleshooting966×517 116 KB

When you’re done go into the scheduled tasks and make sure you check these options. (make sure to save your changes down at the bottom)

Scheduled Tasks
Scheduled Tasks563×845 122 KB

This will let Plex take care of this automatically

In comparison I have 20 terabytes of media and my database folder is 3 gigs. 57 gigs is bigger than my entire Plex Media Folder and that includes about 10 gigs I could delete in the cache.

Chuck if he does this will that delete all the old database files he has so he doesn’t have to delete them manually?

6

I was already a bit hasty and deleted the old databases and will hope that it was not a mistake.
Currently it looks like this in the directory:

com.plexapp.dlna.db
com.plexapp.dlna.db-shm
com.plexapp.dlna.db-wal
com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db
com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2022-08-06-tmp
com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-shm
com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-wal
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2022-08-06-tmp
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-shm
com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-wal

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If you have somewhere else where you can move Plex to, here’s the procedure.

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@B_llou

You can remove the tmp databases too. They should not be there.

In the future, I’d look for a bigger partition somewhere to move PMS to.

9

First of all, thank you for your help.
I was able to clean up my system a bit and now I have some space again.

What about the files in the media directory?
/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Media
Is there also a need for action here?

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@B_llou

You need the contents of Media and Metadata.

I have seen users where their Plex installation needed 500 GB of storage.
Their server ran on their NAS (native app install).

I’m mentioning this because , rather than using your main root filesystem of the computer, you should probably consider a second / another computer-resident storage location (USB HDD) or internal SSD.

If you go the SSD route, go big with it. you’ll get longer lifespan and won’t be bothered anymore.

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And adding to @ChuckPa here

You might wanna check if you have enabled Video Preview Thumbnails

Ref: Why is my Plex Media Server directory so large? | Plex Support

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