Multiple DVR Library Drives—How is PMS Supposed to Function?

[pl4151]

PMS for Mac 1.32.6.7557

{My family ONLY cares about watching and recording OTA Live TV. We have not, nor plan to ever add our own media files. My questions below are strictly in such context.}

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When one has multiple DVR library physical drives, how is PMS supposed to function?

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For example, with two (2) TV Shows folders, each on separate physical drives (eg, Drive1/Plex1/TV_Shows1 and Drive2/Plex2/TV_Shows2):

1. When Drive1 becomes full, are new TV show episodes supposed to automatically be written to TV_Shows2?

2. If so, should Drive1 later have available sufficient space, should PMS then automatically utilize such newly available Drive1 space?

3. Does it matter what the individual folders are named (eg, “Drive1/TV_Shows1; Drive2/TV_Shows2” vs “Drive1/TV Shows; Drive2/TV Shows”)?

4. Does one have to force temporary storage (eg, .grab) to be on a separate drive (ie, not on Drive1, nor Drive2), if indeed one can?

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Until recently, I have had one (1) single external 12TB drive storing the library for all PMS DVR storage structured:

~/Plex → /Volumes/Drive1/Plex symbolic link:

• Movies library: ~/Plex/Movies . . . (ie, /Volumes/Drive1/Plex/Movies)
• TV Shows library: ~/Plex/TV Shows . . . (ie, /Volumes/Drive1/Plex/TV Shows)

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When Drive1 was close to being full, I pondered creating an Apple JBOD, copying the contents of Drive1 to the JBOD, then adding a second 12TB drive to the JBOD vs adding a second Movies and TV Shows library folder.

Considering:

• Creating Libraries

• Multiple Drives

• Multiple hard drives… one library?

I, perhaps mistakenly, concluded PMS would automatically utilize all the folders (ie, all such enclosing drives) specified for each library, so I connected a second 12TB drive, and changed the PMS DVR storage structured to be:

~/Plex1 → /Volumes/Drive1/Plex1 symbolic link:

• Movies library: ~/Plex1/Movies1 . . . (ie, /Volumes/Drive1/Plex1/Movies1)
• TV Shows library: ~/Plex1/TV_Shows1 . . . (ie, /Volumes/Drive1/Plex1/TV_Shows1)

~/Plex2 → /Volumes/Drive2/Plex2 symbolic link:

• Movies library: ~/Plex2/Movies2 . . . (ie, /Volumes/Drive2/Plex2/Movies2)
• TV Shows library: ~/Plex2/TV_Shows2 . . . (ie, /Volumes/Drive2/Plex2/TV_Shows2)

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I then re-scanned both Movies’ and TV Shows’ libraries.

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PMS did not behave as I, apparently mistakenly, had concluded above. When Drive1 became full during a DVR recording session (ie, a .grab/…/… .ts exhausted available space), PMS merely stopped recording, posting an error message in the DVR Schedule.

I then, just now:

1. Manually set all the DVR Schedule entries’ destination folders to be on Plex2;
2. Re-scanned both Movies’ and TV Shows’ libraries;
3. Deleted ~/Plex symbolic link;
4. Created a new folder ~/Plex

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While it is still practical to change to a JBOD, it would be helpful to understand, in detail, how PMS is supposed to function.

TIA