Hmm… now that you mention it. Just copying files from one of my external drives is now asking permission every time and it never used to do that. Not sure why it’s doing it now.
If you set up Windows fresh, you will get a different user ID – even if you use the same user name as on the old/other installation. If you transfer drives from one installations to another, you sometimes need to grant the “new” user account explicitly access.
Otherwise he’ll either be restricted to “read only” or can only change files he added.
In other words: a big mess.
Hmm… read only was ticked on my plex media folder, WTF?
Are you referring to the “Plex data folder” or to the actual folder where your media files are?
In the latter case, that’s probably a good thing. If you want to prevent accidental media file deletions from within Plex.
Plex media server folder …perhaps that happened when I merged partitions? …it made a separate folder afterwards and I had to pull mt folders back out.
…now says gonna take 30min to change read only attribute! LOL
…I never used this to transfer data from another machine. It was old system drive I cloned off long time ago from the same laptop I am using it on now. All I did was plug it into another machine temporarily as I have new mini pc I am setting up and it was easy to swap it in then to mess with the ROG laptop I use as my primary.
…I did do the partition merge on a different machine though.
I don’t think there is something like a “partition merge”. Which means it was actually a file copy from one partition to another.
Which, when performed on a different machine, can very well lead to the copied files having wrong access permissions.
minitool partition wizard 12 …ya I think when I merged it did copy the files.
This will probably solve it …just waiting now and wondering if I also screwed anything else up.
…on a side note I am noticing disappointing SDD speeds through my dock. like around 250 read/write. I have another Sabrient brand device with an M2 in it and it also give about the same speeds docked …but it also has a usb 3 connection through which I get around 450 …through direct sata both are around 550. I feel I should remedy this as my library is sizable and my server cache should be fast as possible for snappy menu responses? and task running?
Stupid question… not sure why i asked. Of course I should “remedy” that!
Thanks for your help I will come back later and report on my success!(hopefully)
Sorry, no idea about that.
If you want snappy storage speeds, avoid USB (and external drives in general, IMHO).
Use PCIe (m.2) or SATA.
This is the point where the decision for the laptop form factor as Plex server will start to turn around and bite you.
…maybe some day. This one however is a beast with a little age on it. Asus ROG G750 series …with a full size graphics card and raided ssd for system drive.
I do have an older self built tower that has PCIe (and a couple first gen usb 3 ports!) that was a good machine back in the day …and I could probably get a conversion card to plug an M2 in with …but would it be worth sacrificing in other performance areas? With my limited upload speed (12mbs) I can’t serve more then about 3 clients at a time anyways …which is currently a rarity. I am sure it could handle a few simultaneous transcodes? …I could also then rack up raided drives instead of using this 20tb my book duo(which is now full up already) …hmm if it meets other performance needs then maybe this would be the way to go?
Well poop …still not finding matches. …not sure if the file permission reset worked …I tried it on other folder and prompt came up in the black cmd window saying “press any key to continue” …when I do it with the plex media server folder it does not give me that prompt …so not sure it actually did anything. Maybe I just have wait longer while scans a ton of files first? Will leave it open for awhile see if prompt pops …will have to come back to this later 
Did you only reset the ‘read-only’ flag?
You might have to look at the ACL permissions (“Security” tab) directly.
Don’t forget to enable “Inheritance”
(the tool from above makes this easy)
Got the permissions reset(using louslab tool) …just had to wait like I thought but now I am thinking this has nothing to do with the problem …I go back to already matched movies and I click “fix match” and it shows no results …if it was just a problem writing metadata then wouldn’t it still find matches? My server doesn’t seem to be connecting to movie agents at all …“Plex Movie” or “The Movie Database” …also doesn’t make sense that it would still identify music properly if it was a permission thing
My Externals through USB 3.0 are faster than my locals.
That’s not my opinion.
It’s a fact.
They’re all ‘Locals’ as far as Plex is concerned, but I wouldn’t put my database on an external. That’s on one of the Local HDDs - in the box. It’s as ‘instant’ as I need it to be.
Theoretically USB3 should have ample throughput(5gbs)… but reality can vary. HDD spin rate is also a factor and if you have something like a My Book duo(like mine) then it will be faster because they are raided drives …and I don’t think an external will ever compare to the new NVMe PCIe standard. ( my new 970 evo plus tested at around 3,500 …my old 840 evo actually tested close to 4,500 with rapid enabled …without was 550)
I thought when I started using SSD as a cache drive it would be a big improvement …but I just recently discovered USB3 through my Sabrient 4 port dock is lacking …getting about half the speed that it would with a USB3 sata adapter …which is a bit slower then with direct sata. (450 vs 550)
If your internal drive is also a system drive then that could be responsible for slightly slower speeds? …and everything I have read strongly recommends you use an SSD for your data/cache drive(faster access important because of the sheer # of files) . HDDs are inherently slow …but more then sufficient for serving movies regardless of connection …but what Otto is talking about may not just be about raw speed? …but responsiveness …just like “ping” is with your internet connection. SATA will always be a more direct on board connection then USB …and “waking” up a drive may also be factor between SATA and USB drives? …not too sure.
In addition to my book duo I have 2x 5tb wd_black (game) drives and 2x 4tb passport external (no independent power) plugged into a hub. These were my main movie drives(now 1 holds my growing 4k collection) before I upgraded to a 20tb My book Duo …which came half full of movies.
…one drawback from using (portable)externals is if you ever drop one from just 3 feet on a hard surface it could kill the drive …regardless of it being on or not. The speed always seems comparable …as fast as my internal HDD when transferring files …but transfers are only as fast as your slowest drive.
Not sure if you have done this …but if you really want to see what is faster then you need speedtest with something like CrystalDiskMark. My USB3 raid external is just over 200mbs read/write …my (5400rpm) externals 80mbs …my internal is a 7200rpm WD black (higher rpm so not a fair comparison) tests at 100 and the WD blue 5400rpm I have in a old dell giant tablet style computer tests at 75mbs …but it is also a system drive.
Ok, that’s weird. my 4tb external tests at 110 and it’s a 5400rpm …that is outperforming my internal 7200rpm but it is also half empty whereas my internal and 5gb externals are almost full. I didn’t think that would be a big factor with sequential read/write unless drive was fragmented?
…I guess the test is occurring on the inner part of disk instead of outer?
I try not to overthink it too much.
My Plex Database is on a WD Red 5400 Spinning Rust Drive bolted in the machine.
When I load pages, or start a stream it’s as ‘Instant’ as I need it, which basically is so fast I can’t count the % numbers, or see the Orange Spinner longer than some fractions of a second - or sit waiting for Posters that load so fast it just doesn’t matter - and I just don’t know how much faster it needs to be.
I have a pair of WD By Book USB 3.0 External Drives, not Raided, not Outlawed, not hacked - just unpacked, plugged in, formatted and told not to go to sleep. They too are 5400 rpm, just like every other drive in my Plexiverse - I can transfer files on the local drives at almost 100MBps - on either of the two Externals at about 160MBps.
I can see the progress bar on transfers and they flat out ‘get there’ faster on the Externals than they do on the Internal, Bolted in the box HDDs.
I moved my data to an HDD 'cause my data is about 350Gigs - about 100Gigs more than my SSD drive - it’s plenty fast (I’m saying INSTANT is pretty much all I need) and with 1.4 TB Free - I don’t have to worry too much about it for a while, at least.
I’ve even thought about 7200 rpm drives - for a few moments - until I see the price, consider the increased failure rates, noise, wear and tear and think about how much faster than INSTANT it’ll be… then I pretty much stop worrying about it and order another WD Red 5400 (on sale) - just like all the others.
If I need more storage and Amazon puts another My Book 8TB on sale - I’ll buy it - 'cause I simply don’t have an issue with an external WD USB drive.
Doesn’t sound like you are serving clients? I agree it isn’t necessarily that important …until your system has to perform multitasking with a sizable library. Scanning tasks don’t have to be fast as long as it gets done …no need to ever to buy a 7200rpm now with SSDs out, if you want faster media drive access raid some reds together …and nice thing about the externals you are buying …even if they are white label they are basically red drives and can later be shucked and popped into a multi disk unraid array with a parity drive …so even if a drive fails you can still recover your data without sacrificing space and get all the speed benefits of a raid and you can mix n’ match drive sizes! …you just have to dedicate 1 drive for “parity”.
This is the route I want to be prepared for in the future …and I regret stocking up on usb powered portable externals
…as for your speed experience. You need to take into account how full the disks are …while writing my last comment above I came to the realization(remembered) that the automatic defrag process is packing the files into the fastest part of the disk surface …so if you test or are writing/reading with a disk that is almost full it is using the slowest part of that disk. SSDs don’t have that issue.
…if you do ever feel you need to up your game and your box can support M2 PCIe (or buy a converter card) I found this to be an extremely reasonable price. 500gb EVO Plus (where I just bought mine) …I don’t know what the difference actually feels like as that is not what I am using mine for …and till I sort out my own SSD issue I can’t really tell how noticeable it really is …but for me if I don’t see that orange ring at all or it barely flashes for a fraction of a second and posters just “pop” …that would be well worth it …but main benefit I think is for people serving multiple clients simultaneously.
