Server Version#: 1.19.4.2935
Player Version#:n/a
I currently have PMS installed on my QNAP NAS. All the media is stored locally on the NAS. For reasons I’ll post separately once I’m done with this migration, I wish to install PMS on a spare MAC desktop rather than natively on the QNAP NAS. Looking at the online guide for migration, it suggests migrating from one platform to another is not easy / not supported - which is fair enough.
However, I don’t expect ‘much’ to be preserved during the migration - I just want to have the same content, in the same libraries, available on the new server, and - I intend to leave the actual media files / structure on the NAS. So my plan is - install PMS on the MAC desktop; shut down PMS on the NAS (but leave the media intact). Point the new installation on the MAC to the existing media folder structure on the NAS.
Should that work, and will that retain the core library structure? I went to great lengths to name my media files / folders in a manner that allowed the media to be correctly presented, and I assume all that ‘work’ will not be in vain.
I don’t care if I lose all my ‘previously viewed’, ‘user statistics’, etc - I just want to preserve the basic media info and I want to avoid having to copy the data off the NAS.
Following up on my own post here. The move from QNAP to MAC (Macbook Pro) was very successful. I simply installed PMS on the Mac, pointed it to the libraries on the QNAP NAS, shutdown the Plex server on the QNAP, and that was pretty much it. I had to recreate my users, and re-share the libraries to them (which was easy for me). Because I’d put all the effort into getting the naming conventions correct on the files / folders, all my shows / series / episodes / trailers / specials / etc came over quite well. The ‘poster art’ defaulted back to some poor choices, but I was able to quickly clean that up.
I undertook this effort to see if I could reduce the noise level on my QNAP NAS. Basically, with PMS running on the QNAP, the noise level was unbearable (I keep my QNAP on a shelf in my media room / office). Basically, with Plex running, the disks constantly thrash; when I shutdown Plex - silence. After moving PMS to the Mac (leaving libraries on the NAS), I think there was some reduction in NAS noise, but not enough reduction so I plugged a 1 TB SSD into the Mac, and moved all the media over to it - SILENCE! At last. I’ve been chasing this issue for over 2 years … there are lots of posts complaining about PMS/QNAP noise, and nothing I’ve ever tried has fixed it. I’ve turned off every conceivable option for scanning, logging, pro-actively converting, thubnail generation, etc etc. Note that after loading about 100 movies back in 2018, I haven’t changed a single thing so it’s not like I’m constantly adding media and thus triggering update scans, etc.
In my opinion, PMS is doing something unnecessary on a very frequent basis, and whatever it is, it is not exposed through any setting in the UI. A good number of people have replied to posts about this saying NAS drives are built for continuous access so don’t worry … but that’s not the point. The QNAP NAS box is a cheap plastic enclosure and the disk noise is seemingly amplified by the design of the box. I did try removing the cover and enclosing the whole thing with an acoustically appropriate ‘outer box’, but I got concerned about cooling.
Now, the Macbook + SSD drive is as silent as a church mouse … and I’ve lost my inclination to throw the NAS box out of the window! It means my $2k+ Macbook Pro is now tied to this new role, but - I wasn’t using it for much anyway …
Plex is wonderful by the way … I can really appreciate it at last.
glad you got everything moved successfully, but if quiet is what you wanted, perhaps you should have just moved the nas to a different room or a closet somewhere ?
btw instructions for moving plex server/data are @
the 2 most important things are the plex database file, and avoiding changing the media path/organization as little as possible.
the preferences.xml file is useful as well, this way the ‘identity’ and preferences are moved to the new server (but you should not run 2 servers with the same preferences file at the same time)
Unfortunately, the NAS has to be hard wired (ethernet), and in my new place, I have not done anything to run ethernet cables to other rooms. So from a purely practical / logistical perspective, I need to have the NAS located ‘not far’ from my cable modem, router, etc. For better or for worse, I’ve chosen my media room for that location. I can put it inside a cabinet and close the door, but - I live in Arizona, and am often away from home, and allow my ambient temperature to get up to 90F … so the temperature inside a closed cabinet is not ideal! So I leave it sitting on an open surface.
Thanks for the ‘move’ instructions; I did find that and it suggests that it is very easy to move from ‘like’ platform to ‘like’ platform (windows to windows, linux to linux, etc) but not so easy to cross platforms (linux to Mac). Given this warning, I was very pleased with how the migration worked.
Edit To Add: now that I’ve done it and better understand what’s involved, I will look again at the preferences.xml file on the old and the new setups.
2-bay QNAP TS-251-Plus
2 drives: Seagate ST4000VN008-2DR166
The enclosure seems somewhat flimsy and if I pick up the unit and press hard on the sides, it gets a lot quieter - partly because then I’m removing it from the shelf which itself is a bit of a resonator. As I mentioned, I once took the case off and covered the whole thing with an outer box with foam inside. Definitely much quieter but I got concerned about heat buildup. The unit does run fairly cool, though - my room is currently 84F, and the drives are only reporting 95F. The fan at the rear is not spinning much.
I have extremely good / sensitive hearing and don’t like noise. But the QNAP is nice and quiet under all other circumstances, it’s only when Plex is running that I notice it.
To clarify, the noise from the QNAP + PMS is there all the time, not only when playing something (streaming). That’s kinda my whole gripe - I wouldn’t mind if it just made noise when serving up media, but it’s noisy when PMS is doing nothing. I have two identical drives, mirrored (thus Raid 1).
To further recap -
in 2018 I bought the NAS to use as a PMS Server. Loaded PMS, and about 100 movies, ripped from my DVD collection using Handbrake and/or MakeMKV, as decent quality MKVs. I followed the instructions for folder and file naming and was quite pleased with how Plex served up the media. This was purely for my own consumption, so I could watch movies at home. No need to generate different resolution versions.
Never loaded another movie after that initial batch, and turned off all the other various options - (‘disable video stream transcoding’, etc). So there really was no excuse for Plex to be constantly re-assessing anything as far as I could see - but as I sat there next to the box, it would endlessly churn. And if I stopped the Plex Media Server application … silence. I eventually gave up - shut it down. But about a month ago I had a need for it again, and fired it up … updated to latest version … and it was exactly the same as before. Hence … the move to the Macbook Pro. I’m now going to move it again to my Mac Mini, which is currently doing light / occasional duty as a vehicle for Netflix on an old TV.
Ironwolf drives are incredibly noisy. One of the users I work with bought them and was sorry he did by the end of the first day. They are not something you want out in the open anywhere. He has 8 of them and the noise is beyond annoying.
I had suggested WD 7200 RPM NAS drive but he wanted Ironwolf due to the storage / price ratio. Now he understands why.
Interesting; I didn’t even realize I’d bought 7200 RPM drives, because I know that 5400 RPM is perfectly adequate for NAS use. They certainly are noisy!
But what is really mysterious is … what is it that PMS is doing when no users are viewing anything, and no new content has been added for 2 years. Sadly I’m not experienced with troubleshooting linux storage issues, so I can’t seem to dig into what exactly is causing the access. On windows systems I’ve learned, over the years, to track down I/O traffic but never on linux. Everything I look at on the QNAP NAS suggests nothing much is happening … but my ears beg to differ. And, when I stop the PMS app, the noise stops … so ‘something’ is going on. And there are plenty of users posting on the QNAP forums about this also … but the answer always seems to end up being … ‘NAS devices are built for constant access to stop worrying’.
You’re correct. NAS drives, in addition to being rated for 24/7/365 operation, also have TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) in the firmware. This means that if the drive can’t quickly (milliseconds) map to a new sector, it will fail out and let the NAS handle it (which is what a NAS does innately). Otherwise, you could end up in the situation, like you do on desktop computers, where the drive retrying hangs the whole machine. This is bad for a NAS. A Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) being crippled because one has bad spot? Such behavior is not permitted.
