Hi, I have mounted PLEX inside an Ubuntu Server. I’ve followed a video, so I’m not an expert.
My question is: Can I transfer files from a USB External HDD to the server itself? The thing is that I’m currently copying my files through SMB over Wi-Fi, and the transfer data is arround 1Mb/s so… it’s kinda slow and in order to move a movie I need to leave the computer turned on several hours.
So… I thought that via USB, I can connect the HDD and transfer everything a little bit faster (?)
USB should be faster than Wifi.
plug in the USB cable, mount the USB drive in Ubuntu and move files over to your target folder on the actual system.
technically there’s no need to have the server and the media on the same system – assuming you have sufficient bandwidth (preferably via a wired network). you won’t have much fun if your Plex Server itself is also providing videos to your local network through Wifi only at ~1 Mbit/s… that’s won’t even be enough for a DVD video… even if further compressed.
@tom80H said:
USB should be faster than Wifi.
plug in the USB cable, mount the USB drive in Ubuntu and move files over to your target folder on the actual system.
technically there’s no need to have the server and the media on the same system – assuming you have sufficient bandwidth (preferably via a wired network). you won’t have much fun if your Plex Server itself is also providing videos to your local network through Wifi only at ~1 Mbit/s… that’s won’t even be enough for a DVD video… even if further compressed.
Hey, I mean, I’m running it in an Ubuntu Server… so actually I can only see a MS-DOS type interface… that’s the problem, because I can’t use any command inside my user in the server (tried the commands ls, cd, etc… and anything works…)
if you have no visuals on the paths you’re working with, you can misuse Plex just to look them up:
in Plex, click Edit on some library
go to Add Folder and click the button
you can now see the folder structure / files of your server (as they are visible to the plex user; the mounted USB drive should be under /media/
[edit] cancel when done
as for the target folder… don’t put this into /media/
best create a folder in the /home/ section just for your Plex media (example borrowed from one of the Plex guys around this forum):
sudo mkdir -p /home/plex-dir/movies – creates the folder “movies” and all missing parents not currently available
sudo chown -R plex.plex /home/plex-dir – assigns the ownership of this folder to the plex user and group
sudo chmod -R 755 /home /home/plex-dir – sets permissions for the folder so the plex user can do everything, while members of its group as well as everybody else can only read.
The -R in the last 2 commands will apply permissions/ownership to all subfolders (incl. the “movies” folder created in the 1st step
so the command could be sudo cp "/media/usb-drive-name/movies/" "/home/plex-dir/movies" (sudo as the user you use is not the owner of the folder we just created)
how do you access the server?
are you directly working on the machine (having the server connected to a monitor and keyboard) or via a remote connection such as SSH? with OpenSSH installed on the server, you can install a SSH client on your computer and connect from there (e.g. PuTTY if you’re on a Windows machine). There’s also apps allowing you to access the filesystem through a GUI via this SSH connection (e.g. Cyberduck).
PS: don’t tell anyone you called the Linux terminal a “MS-DOS type interface”
I think I understood what you said… actually I’m working with the machine with a dedicated monitor and keyboard (because it happens that I have a couple of very old spare monitor and a keyboard :# )
And… going back to the issue, I’ve tried connecting the HDD… but it’s not showing it in the /media Folder, and the console says:
sd 5:0:0:0: [sdg] No Caching mode page found
sd 5:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through
I think that the problem is that the Server is not detecting the USB HDD chache (?)
Thanks for all of your help! :D!!!
EDIT
And now that I´m trying to transfer a file… it says that the speed is almost 4 Mb/s… (?)
I don’t get this change, I’ve been uploading files for a month or so now… and this is the first time the speed went up like this
don’t trust Windows when it comes to remaining time or speeds
as for the USB drive… depends on your configuration. you might need to “mount” it. there’s a nice overview on mounting behavior on the ubuntu pages: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount/USB
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