Hi, I am very new to PLEX but have so far found it very easy to setup and learn (though I am still learning).
I currently have a 4tb external usb 3.0 HDD for which I use for all my media, movies, music etc… when it becomes full, is it possible to simply attach say an 8tb external hdd and copy all the contents from my exisiting 4tb drive across without the plex server thinking it has to sort and check everything again? (I only have 1 spare usb port as I am using an nvidia shield tv for my server which works very very well you see)
It might be time to get a small NAS and start migrating both drives and media to it.
I started with two 2TB drives on USB ports. Thanks to working at Plex (haha), I’ve had to ‘grow’ that over time. In the past 4 years, I’ve gone from my initial drives to a Synology DS1815+ (had the DS1813+ first with 5 drives in it) which is now full and, my most recent acquisition, which I also use for tech support because of its capabilities, a QNAP TVS-1282. (The Synology boxes have small processors. I needed a box which can do everything and the QNAP does it)
This is very much a ‘pay to play’ hobby. Both QNAP and Synology make nice smaller boxes. Not all of them are capable of supporting everything PMS can do but they all will provide you the base NAS functionality as well as provide you a basis from which to grow.
Should you decide to go this route, I strongly recommend you size the chassis based on where you think you’ll be in 3 years because the box is the most expensive and equally costly to expand (expansion boxes aren’t cheap)
NAS is where I intend to end up but financially it is unviable for me at the moment. Therefore I was hoping to be able to migrate from the external usb hdd to a NAS drive without PLEX requiring a complete re scan and sort of my existing media.
I can tell you that it is possible on Windows.
You just have to make sure that you copy all the old content 1:1 with all the folders and subfolders intact and named the same.
Then when you attach the other hard disk, you need to make sure it gets the same drive letter assigned by Windows, just like the other drive had.
If your server is running in a different architecture, there are probably other pitfalls.
I know you can rename drives under OSX, so when you have a server on Apple, you need to ‘name’ the drive the same.
Something similar is probably necessary on Linux.
But I have no idea what is needed when your server runs on the nVidia Shield - sorry!
I thought the same, if I keep copy the contets 1:1 and keep the drive name the same, I don’t see why it shouldn’t work, but some clarification would be very nice to save me time in the future if it wouldn’t or couldn’t work for some reason.
and leave them off while you move things around, PMS will not involve itself with your media move.
Once your media is in final posiion, you can “Update Library” (Scan Files) to make sure nothing gets the 'Red trashcan" on it (unavailable). This would signify missing or misplaced media file(s). You can repeat this as often as necessary.
When you’re happy with it, make one final scan. Next restore settings 1 & 2 to their previous state
I recently priced new disks for my NAS. Since I have a custom built PC for the job (and figured out how to spin up a VM in Freenas for my plex server, WOOHOO!) I get the flexibility of putting any hardware I want without too much difficulty. On that end, if I need to size upwards, my plan is to replace disks in a big go, by replacing each one with a bigger one, and then slowly reslivering each one. Right now, with 4 3TB drives, I’ve got a nice nest egg of about 7TBS and I’m at about 50% of content (some of it is backups from other computers and of course work file shares, software development repos, etc) so I think I am pretty fine shape for when/if I need to upsize.
@knightsword said:
I recently priced new disks for my NAS. Since I have a custom built PC for the job (and figured out how to spin up a VM in Freenas for my plex server, WOOHOO!) I get the flexibility of putting any hardware I want without too much difficulty. On that end, if I need to size upwards, my plan is to replace disks in a big go, by replacing each one with a bigger one, and then slowly reslivering each one. Right now, with 4 3TB drives, I’ve got a nice nest egg of about 7TBS and I’m at about 50% of content (some of it is backups from other computers and of course work file shares, software development repos, etc) so I think I am pretty fine shape for when/if I need to upsize.
Isn’t it funny how EVERYTHING else you back up only comes to like 5-10% of your space - the rest - big media files!!
Funny, tragic signs of an addiction, I’ve not decided yet. You would think the code repos would be bigger, but, alas, no. They don’t even kiss a solid gigabyte.
22 GB (full PMS backup) versus 20TB (media).
Am talking about his PC backups, work stuff etc
And as we know the more your media grows the smaller the percentage of those few spreadsheets and word docs !
They don’t even kiss a solid gigabyte.