How to backup and restore PMS settings/metadata?

You don’t do the backup over the LAN by copying the files to/from your PC.
Doing so will:

  1. Take an incredibly long time
  2. Lose all the date/time stamps on the files
  3. Lose the ownership and other file attributes

To do the backup

  1. Stop Plex
  2. Open PlexData → Plex Media Server in File Station
  3. Highlight all the files & directories listed (checkbox at the top)
  4. Right-Click → Compress
  5. Give it whatever name you want for the ZIP file
  6. Click OK to start creating the ZIP file
  7. When it completes, the ZIP will be the perfect backup of all the data
  8. You may now copy the ZIP file over the LAN to Windows if you wish.