Yes, if you want to retain your old libraries and the usage data which are stored in them. (e.g. which episodes of a tv show have already been watched and when)
If done right, you also don’t have to repeat the manual metadata editing and “fix matching” operations you may have done in the past.
This would be my preferred option, if the old hard drive is still readable.
You can easily set up a fresh server without creating a new plex.tv account.
(Doing so doesn’t require you to salvage the old hard drive.)
You would start afresh – as if the media has never been added to a Plex library.
The only thing you might need to do if you have several other Plex clients is to reset their customizations, so they use your newly set up server as their default.
And of course, as indicated above: starting fresh also means you’ll have to repeat all the manual corrections to the metadata which you may (or may not) have been forced to perform when you added the media to your old server.
The deciding factor as to which route to take entirely depends on this question…
How important to you is your previous Plex watch history / library setup / metadata ???
For me, the prospect if starting again is simply inconceivable, as I have been running Plex for years now, with fairly large libraries, and all of that watch history.
But if none of that is important to you, then just start again with a new server, sign in with your current account details and build up your libraries again from scratch. As @OttoKerner stated, you do not need to delete your account to create a new server.
So… How important to you is your previous watch history??
EDIT: And if you choose to go down the route of trying to retain your previous history, we are here to help if needed
Thanks. Honestly I don’t care much about the watch history. I have hundreds of files, but they are shared with a few close family and the watch history is mixed, as they log into my Plex account remotely.
I have manually adjusted some metadata, but that isn’t a deal breaker either
Having said that, I would rather NOT have to set up my libraries again, if possible.
So I’ll proceed with yanking my old internal HD and connect externally to one of my new laptops.
Am I just using the old server HD to transfer some registry stuff to the new server laptop, or am I leaving the old HD attached to the new laptop externally, along with my Media external HD?
That is up to you. If you find a mechanically stable solution for housing the old hard drive, you can opt to keep using it as your plex data folder location.
However, with a laptop I reckon it is difficult to achieve that.
(I’d consider laptops in general the least desirable form factor for a Plex server. They are difficult to cool silently and are not easily extendable. But that is your call.)
If your laptop has a large SSD in it and the old drive is still “spinning rust”, I’d rather copy all the data from the plex data folder to the new drive.
So this “Plex Media Server data directory” is what I need to access on my old HD? Got it. I know that my media files aren’t stored there, but what is? It sounds like a copy of my external media directory, so why the redundancy?
Id prefer to use the new laptop. It’s SSD, but the old one isnt
It is not a copy of the media files. It contains all the metadata Plex collected about your media as well as the inner structure of your server libraries.
posters, selection of audio or subtitle tracks, watching history, collections etc.pp.
That’s horrible. You know that each of your shared users can have his/her own account, right? Which not only enables each and every one to have their own, separate watch history but also enables you to see who (mis-)used your server.
Makes sense… Guess I never considered where the metadata was stored.
I didn’t realize they could have their own separate access account to my PLEX account. Great to know! I’ll look into that if/when I’m successful at the transfer.
Out of town this weekend but will attempt the transfer when I get back.
SO I removed the old Server internal HD from the dead laptop and have the adapter to USB. I am following the video but when he mentions going to the “source machine that has the Plex sever” I obviously can’t (its dead). I can log in to Plex on the new laptop but obviously can’t access the settings he is talking about (settings>server>library>Empty trach automatically after every scan).
Still cant figure out how to access settings on server machine. I moved ahead just to see if I could access the
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server
I copied and pasted it. On the HD I removed from the server laptop. Windows can’t find it, though. Says check spelling and try again.
I decided to try just:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex
Which worked, but I had much less folders than expected. Only Preferences, Plug-in Support, Cache, Codecs, Logs.
No Metadata etc… I went ahead and zipped the files I had but suspect something isn’t right here also.
I’ll wait for advice from those familiar with this process.
The default location is c:\users\user_name\AppData\Local.
AppData is hidden by default. To make if visible in File Explorer, click on the View tab, then check the box for “Hidden Items.”
If you enter %LOCALAPPDATA% into File Manager, it will take you to the location set by Windows for your PC.
To get to the location on the old drive now attached via USB, use File Manager, start at the root level of the drive (i.e d:\ or whatever the correct drive letter), and manually work your way to the location.
Regarding my previous inquiry, is it necessary to deselect “Empty trash automatically” before proceeding?
It kinda sounds important, lol. But I still can’t seem to access those setting on the destination laptop, even with the (now dead) previous server’s internal HD attached via USB.
During the PMS setup, do you suggest just setting up the 2 default librarys (photos & music I think), or are you suggesting setting up a Movie library before moving the old server files (and media ext HD) over?
I am concerned about this: I noticed that my when exporting my registry file, it was only 5kb, and it saved immediately. HOWEVER, during the YouTube video I am following, How to Move / Migrate a Plex Server from a Windows PC to Another - YouTube
around ~4:10 he mentions taking a break as saving this registry file will take a while. Then the video shows a 7Zip GUI compressing a file that is 25115 MB, that will take over an hour!
Did I miss something?? Why was my registry file so small?
EDIT: NM… THE LARGE FILE IN 7ZIP WAS HIS PMS FOLDER STILL COMPRESSING IN THE BACKGROUND (not his registry file), I CONFLATED THE 2, MY MISTAKE
I am proceeding, but wanted to upload this registry edit in the interim, in case I did it wrong. I didn’t see anywhere else you could make those changes.
