Need to move my Plex installation and data

General Discussions
1

I’ve searched and tried various articles and none of them have working. I’m trying to move my Plex install and data from one Windows Server 2012 to another Windows 2012 server.

On the source server, I have my D:\Plex Media Server with all the folders/data (Cache, Codecs, Crash Reports, Logs, Media, Metadata, etc…) In Plex, with Show Advanced settings, under Server the setting named “The path where local application data is stored” is set to D:\

On the new server, the Plex Media Server folder with all the data needs to be on the S:\ drive.

I tried to create a new install not realizing that Plex wanted just the root path S:, so initially I entered S:\Plex Media Server. Most application I’ve seen and coded myself always have the full path in a setting like this. Anyways, once I figured out the mistake, I tried to change it to just S:\ and then I copied the data over. At some point Plex wouldn’t start and it was all a mess.

So what I need to know is what my procedure would be to move Plex. And where and what are the names of the config files that I will need to edit to update with the path of S: instead of D:

Thank you,
Adrian

2

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201370363-Move-an-Install-to-Another-System

3

Hi, thanks for trying, but that is one of the articles I saw and tried which didn’t work. I will try again from the beginning hoping that maybe I missed a step or something.

4

To dig into more specifics:

  1. The registry information is important. I don’t use Windows and have never seen the registry keys but do know they have to come with to a new system. IIRC (from reading) this is where PMS gets the path to its “Application Support” directory. This is the critical piece. Everything exists below it (relative addressing).

  2. The pathnames to your media are stored in the DB. Once PMS finds the DB, it can find everything else. You would have to edit every database record to change media records manually. This is why the procedure is best. It takes into consideration that both the system and locations can be different.

5

Here is a little more detailed HowTo for moving application data on Windows:

Do first install Plex server on the new machine.
Then copy over the data folder from the old machine.
Don’t forget the registry branch if you don’t want to lose your Plex shares.

Most important: your new D: drive must not be a networked drive and it must not be a pooled volume (either using Windows’ own ‘storage spaces’ or the 3rd party ‘DrivePool’ software.)
It must be a regular, NTFS-formatted, local hard drive.

6

ok guys, I went through and carefully followed the instructions again, double checking everything and what I typed and its looking good now. Thank you!