Migrate to new share without triggering "newly added"

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: latest
Player Version#: latest

I’m after some advice please.

I’m rebuilding my NAS on a new platform, and migrating all my content from one server to another.
The old server is called “FS” and has a share called “TV” and also “Films”
The new server is called “FS2” also with a share of “TV” and "Films

I’d like to rename “FS2” to “FS” once the migration is complete, and am trying to think of the best way to transition Plex from one server to another with minimal downtime, and more importantly, without triggering it to scan the new share and decide all the content it finds is “new”.

As I need to reuse some disks from the old server in the new one in order to copy all the films over, I can’t do a hard cut of renaming the server.
Therefore, I need Plex to initially look at the new server for TV and the old server for Films.
I’ll then copy the films over, and transition the Films share.
Once done, I can rename the server and adjust the shares.

If I add both old and new TV shares, scan, then remove the old TV share, would that work and allow Plex to continue as if nothing had changed?

Thanks
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No.
The “server name” doesn’t matter really. You can do with it what you want. Changing it has no consequence, except a cosmetic one.

The true “identity” of a server is in a unique identifier number. That number is stored in the hidden preferences https://support.plex.tv/articles/201105343-advanced-hidden-server-settings/
If you can move all the Plex server data, you can move this identity with it.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201539237-backing-up-plex-media-server-data/
This will move all the access permissions for other users as well.
But if you do this, you must never, ever start Plex server on the old machine again.

You are saying “NAS”. What platform?

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Sorry, perhaps I didn’t explain clearly enough;
The Plex server is not changing, the NAS server (TrueNAS) is changing. As a result, the SMB share path for my content, that I have mapped in Plex, is changing.

Many thanks
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But it doesn’t necessarily have to change.
Can’t you manually assign IP adresses, host names, and share names in TrueNAS? Thus making sure that nothing changes for an outside file sharing client.

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What I did is add the new share to the server. Then copied the movies over to the new share and let the server find them. Once the new share has been scanned by the server, delete the files from the old share and let the server scan the old share. Once done you can delete the share. This will maintain all database info for your movies and shows.

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There is absolutely no guarantee that this will work. Particularly with unmatched items in general and music, which is often unmatched.

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All I am saying is that it worked for me. But then again I did not have unmatched items.

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Well I’d have to have two different IPs and two different DNS names during the migration?

This was my plan, and assumed it would work in this way.
I think I’ll just give this method a go and see what happens :+1:

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