Hi everyone. I have my RPi running with the PlexConnect Apple TV connected. I’ve been away from it for 4 months and I have some TV and Movies to add. I also have a new HDD to put into place. I’d like to move the TV Shows into 1 drive and the movies on another. Can I do this without having to remove the library or lose all my meta data I’ve changed for these titles?
Thanks for the help everyone.
You can, it’s slightly complicated, and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll lose any custom edits anyway, so if you aren’t 100% compliant with your file names and structures now might be a good time to make that happen.
Anyway…
I believe the following is required. Edit your Library" Folder" links and Manually Drag and drop the Storage files to the desired drive, update your Library. Most of meta data will be left intact as you have not relocated the data, Refresh Library moved and you may have to “Fix Match”(Found in the Incorrect Title Eclipse{…} Bottom Right of the Title Poster) any Titles that are incorrect. As JuiceWSA stated make sure you have filenames 100% Compliant will make sure you have a easy time changing Folder locations.
All my stuff is 100% compliant so I don’t have to worry too much about ‘rematching’. If it has to rematch it’ll match the second time just like it did the first time, but I do like to keep those video preview thumbnails I generate for everything.
By COPYING the library I intend to move to the new location, then aiming that old library to the new location - leaving the library aimed at the old location as well, Plex whirrs and buzzes as it blends and merges two copies of the same items together (resulting in a blue 2 on the poster). Once everything has been found and indexed again (could take a while - depending on the size of the library) I whack the old pointer and hose the old library. Plex whirrs and buzzes again removing all the blue 2s. When that’s done I Update Libraries (just for good measure), Empty Trash, Clean Bundles and Optimize the Database.
Fairly painless.
So I have edited a lot of my content, especially my Movies. For example getting all my Marvel Cinematic Universe movies in order or other series and sequels. I’m going to have a read over all these links… It might be easiest for me to move my TV Shows and leave the movies as they are. Thanks for the responses
I’d say BACKUP your database. At the very lease if all goes to s**t, you can restore from the backup.
Just keep the content where it is and only edit Plex library paths.
@NewPlaza said:
I’d say BACKUP your database. At the very lease if all goes to s**t, you can restore from the backup.
Just keep the content where it is and only edit Plex library paths.
Good advice, but really if you care about your collection it should already be backed up. Backing up when a risk of loss is obviously greater, is like taking life insurance before going to the doctor.
True but Plex does backups anyways. I just don’t know at what time Plex backs up. The truth is, I don’t care to much about my database. I have maybe 2-5 edits so if I lost my database I could re-create it without any issues. Just set it and forget it
I’ve just spent the last few weeks adding new content to Movies and TV. From that first link by JuiceWSA about upgrading a HDD, it says:
If you’re simply upgrading to a new/larger hard drive, the easiest thing to do is to name the new location exactly the same as the original one. That means simply making sure the new hard drive is named exactly the same as the old one, and that the media files are in the same location.<
I’m running this on my Raspberry Pi (Raspbian), when it says name the same as the original, does this mean the drive Label? In my fstab file I use the UUID for my drive and the mount location is /mnt/plexlib. As I was going to put TV on one drive and Movies on the other, so I was going to change the mount location to ‘tvplex’ & ‘mvplex’. I can keep the same folder structure and names on the drive. Changing the mount location of the movies worries me a little, it’s not the end of the world if I lose the metadata.
I agree with backing up my database, that’s a given.
@FL00DY
I’m not at all a veteran on the RPi but if Plex behaves anything like the Windows version then the drive label does not matter. Only the path. If the path stays the same then Plex will not even know the drive was upgraded.
If you want to change the actual location your media is stored at then I would copy all the media to the new location and add the new path to Plex… Wait until Plex has found all the data on the new drive(path). Be sure Plex is completely done… I would update the libraries manually afterwards just to be absolutely sure. When you feel confident that Plex has updated and added the new content from the new drive, then disconnect/unmount the old drive. Update the libraries.
This will need to be done twice because you are changing both the movie path and the tvshow path.
Yea, I just Copy First leaving the old and when Plex is done I delete the old. Things seem to share that way and it’s not been an issue - yet.
