Importing Libraries & database from older NAS/Server?

Plex Media Server
,
1

Server Version#: 1.30.2.6563
Player Version#:Not Applicable, not a client Issue

I just had to Reinstall my NAS’s version of Debian 11 (was wanting to migrateto a larger drive to find out Debian’s default on non UEFI systems pretty much screw’d the pooch..making it impossible to do so.) just got done reconfiguring Samba, and installing Plex , as well copying data over to thier Respective Samba shares. ((my content for my plex server resided in one of the 2…))

i Reeeealy dont want to setup the database for my libraries all over again due to alot of the content wasn’t coming up by default and i had to manually set a few tv shows w/ their correct tvdb listings. i still have the original hard drive, for the most part everything’s intact.

i want to make sure i have the gist of 2 articles correct
https://support.plex.tv/articles/202915258-where-is-the-plex-media-server-data-directory-located/ & https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/

i should be able to grab the Server Data directory from “/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/” off the old drive and plop it down on the New one, restart, make sure directories line up (they roughly do.)and Rescan? or am i incorrect?

2

Yes. Strongly recommend:

  1. WIth PMS stopped
  2. Move existing “Library” out of the way.
  3. Tar pipe from old to use as new current
  4. chown it all
sudo bash

# Move current which will not be used out of the way
cd /var/lib/plexmediaserver
mv Library Library.unused

# Use tar to preserve everything (cp is much slower & doesn't preserve links)
cd /path/to/old/var/lib/plexmediaserver
tar cf - ./Library | (cd /var/lib/plexmediaserver ;  tar xf - )

# fix ownership
chown -R plex:plex ./Library

Assuming all the mount points align and permissions allow plex to read, you’re good to go