I’d like to move my Plex server from Windows to FreeBSD. How much of it, if any, could I salvage? Should I just start over from scratch, which wouldn’t be a problem except that I have a very large audio collection configured to my liking? I’m wondering if it’s possible to copy my metadata over and not lose custom changes. Is it supported on FreeBSD with a Ryzen 9? Is there anything in the forums about Plex on FreeBSD? I want the machine dedicated to Plex so Linux is overkill but if there are issues with FreeBSD then Slackware would be an alternate choice. I’d assume (!) that some NAS run under FreeBSD so it would be supported.
I’m only concerned with audio. I don’t really care if there are issues with video.
There is a support article about moving files between different OSs…
When I did this years ago, my media files resided on a separate NAS system that would serve both PMS systems, one Windows and one FreeBSD, I edited the database to change the paths for the files… Took a while to learn the database layout and the commands needed but eventually got it right… If I had to do it again, I would just set up the system and let scan and make my edits… If you are comfortable editing database files, it is possible to do…
As far as the Ryzen 9, I have no idea, never had one… But if it will run FreeBSD then it should be able to run PLEX…
Migrating your server incl. metadata etc. should work if you follow the guide.
Given you migrate across platforms, your new setup will appear as a separate/new server. That should mostly only matter if you were sharing media with others (given Plex will consider your server a different instance, you’ll have to re-share those libraries).
From what I remember, there’s one major restriction with audio.
The libraries used by Plex to perform sonic analysis on your audio files are not available for FreeBSD, hence you’ll not be able to use this feature on the platform!
