I think the solution at this point would be to revert back to my new machine (120) and host that server for my plex media, and set up local shares for my old PC (222) for the two hard drives that will be acessible for local file sharing on my 120 machine.
that way I can control it all from my new system
Precisely. Good plan.
Alternatively, if you have the free storage space on the new machine available, you can copy the media from the old machine to the new machine. Once you have the file sharing working, this should be easy.
I mean I could do that if I purchased another M2 SSD drive, sure i can take everything from my two old standard HDDâs and put them on there, but it would also require me to rebuild my plex meta data and that is a real pain so I donât know if i want to go that route.
Going the âWindows file shareâ route will require doing this anyway.
Canât you just put a drive on a local network share and just have it be acessible from any other computer on the network? You donât have to copy/transfer the files to a diff media storage to accomplish that.
That is what I was talking about above, with the âWindows file shareâ reference.
My recommendation to copy the files instead is because:
- the old computer has to be switched on for the media to be available. If itâs off, you cannot access them in any way on your new Plex server. So now you have to keep two machines running at all times, insteasd of just one.
- network file access is always slower than local hard drives.
- there are suddenly more components involved if one of the media stored on the old computer shall be played. Which means more sources for malfunction.
hmm damn, so your saying just transfer the entire archive to another storage device? How does that relate to setting up windows sharing.
It makies it easier to copy the data. Otherwise you would have to use some mobile hard drive to transport the files from machine 1 to machine 2.
hmm ok well your going to have to show me how to do this, but it seems like the most viable option at this point. I guess. The only other thing i could do is go purchase another Nmve Drive and transfer the whole archive from all 4 hard drives, to that SSD drive and eleminate my old machine all together.
Something just was pointed out to me:
While we were struggling above with the servers,
did you see another link which says âremove serverâ anywhere in the server settings? And did you click on it?
Why does it have to be a NVMe drive? Is the new machine so small that it cannot hold traditional hard drives anymore?
NVMe drives are still much more expensive for higher capacities than hard drives. And media files rarely require the speed of NVMe drives.
I know what your taking about and I deffinitly didnât click anything like that. I accidently removed a desktop server under the authorized devices along time ago without backing up my plex data the correct way and lost pretty much everything. I had to rebuild my entire database from scratch. But no I did not remove any server today.
Modern cases donât accomodate for standard traditional HDDâs much any more as they are quickly becoming obselete for new system builds. I only have one hard drive cage that you can put two HDDâs in and thats it. But the motherboard has 4 slots for NVMe drives. 4 other HDD"s are currently installed on my old machine. The rest of everything is on Externals in which case is the majority, i have 14 total.
suprisingly with the right component upgrades, i can still use 14 externals on my new PC, no problems.
It is only those 4 extra HDDâs that I wonât be able to utilize with the new server.
Ok so I think I am going to set up windows local sharing and see how this works for me so I can use my New system to access all 4 hard drives from my old machine. In which case, I should just be able to set plex on my new system running with those libraries.
How do I go about doing this, when I click on Give access to > Specific people . there is no name listed for my new system. So what is the proper steps to set up my old system to share with my new system for various different library archives.
ok so I just went to right click the drive > Advanced sharing > and shared it with all users. I can now acess all the files on my other computer, but how do you get plex to point to the local ânetworkâ location for the shared folder?
Also I donât want to share it with every user, just the one desktop so how do I add my new system as the only sharing device for that library.
I think I figured it out. I have all the folders and libraries I need being shared to my JEFF PC. How do I add a new user? I still canât figure that part out. In the box it only shows my computer, but i have like up to 8 different computers on my home network, including android devices, laptops, ect.
I also went to âMap network driveâ and gave it the cooresponding drive letter from my old system and then plex was able to locate it. So i tested it after setting it up through plex and sure enough it works. I am able to play media files from my old system and my new system on two seperate library archives running at the same time.
Well I looked at alot of tutorials and I still canât figure out how to share access to a specific library and designate it for one device only, instead of âALL USERSâ. I set up all devices on my network to share with, but I donât want to share a library with all users. I have kids so I donât want them to gain access to some of those files but I also would like to set up sharing for them as well, as an exmaple I have kids cartoons that I would like them to be able to play. Then I have anime storages that I would like my self and some other adults in the house to be able to use.
The Windows user account with which you are sharing must exist on both computers.
You need to create a âlocalâ account, not one with a Microsoft account. Windows will try and discourage you from it, you tell it that you donât know the email of that person.
The user account in question must be the same user name which you are using to login on your new Plex server machine. Pick the same password for that user.
i.e. create it on the old server, name it exactly like the user name on the new server.
This is important, because Plex server on the new machine is running within this user account. It only can access what its Windows user has permission to access.
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