NVIDIA Shield Pro - Best Method for Adding Storage?

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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Server Version#: 1.19.4.2902
Player Version#: N/A

Ok, I have a new NVIDIA Shield Pro (2019) and I’m struggling to get PMS to work. I have a relatively large library and need to have extra storage for all of the required metadata. I’m not attempting to move existing PMS data or anything, just trying to get it setup as new.

PROBLEM: Twice now, I’ve installed PMS, added libraries from my mounted NAS volumes, and after a day or two of downloading metadata, I come back to the device to find PMS has stopped. I go to start it or restart the Shield and it doesn’t start. NOTE: I have a USB 3 stick with 256GB of memory formatted as external storage and I went through the steps to move the PMS data to external storage.

QUESTIONS:

  1. Where do I go to review logs!?!? I suspect it’s storage related but can’t confirm because I can’t see any errors!?!?

  2. For those who have a Shield setup, is it better to have your USB/MicroSD storage setup as “External Storage” & move your PMS data to it or as “Internal Storage” and do nothing?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide! :slight_smile:

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arguably, if your library is so large it won’t fit on internal storage, the shield is not the right server for you.

  1. don’t use a usb stick for metadata storage, at a minimum use a usb3 SSD drive.
  2. to minimize storage for metadata, make sure that THUMBS, CHAPTERS, and VIDEO previews are DISABLED > Plex Web > settings > library > disable applicable options.
  3. you could try deleting any already existing thumbs/etc at the library level > library 3 dot menu > manage library > edit > advanced > delete preview thumbs (and you might as well uncheck the ‘enable video thumbs’ there too.

that said, you should be able to follow the directions @

see also

and

logs located @

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Thanks for the reply.

To your statement that my library is too large for the Shield: considering that the new Shield only comes with 16GB of internal storage, I presumed the whole idea of PMS on the device was to access your library data remotely via NAS shares? Isn’t it designed to do this? Certainly the Plex articles I’ve read up until now suggest that.

I can say that the metadata on the same library content for my Windows based PMS is about 86GB give or take so I made some assumptions that the same content would require about the same size of metadata storage on the Android based PMS. I can confirm that the USB drive is not full (it has about 71GB of free space).

As for using an SSD drive over a thumb drive, why? I did some research before purchasing the USB 3.1 thumb drive I’m using and it’s as fast or faster than most SSDs (420MB/s read and 380MB/s write) and is fully supported as internal storage by NVIDIA. I don’t think using an SSD is the answer.

I’m currently installing for a third time. This time I have the USB configured for internal storage. We’ll see where that gets me. I will review the information you posted, especially about the logs.

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yes, the assumption for shield server is media either on a nas/network storage, or in an attached usb drive.

the internal storage is limited in size, and is not easy to access.

aside from the limited built in storage, the shield as server will always be limited by the cpu processing power, its like a mobile phone with a great gpu.

the gpu only matters when transcoding is required, the cpu must do all the other heavy lifting, like database processing, metadata processing, reading/writing all that to where ever the storage is.

no matter how you look at it, it is a limited resource device.

it should work great, up until the point that it doesn’t.

what that point is, how large a library it can handle, is entirely dependent on your performance tolerances while browsing around your content on any connected clients.

as far as thumb drive vs ssd, thumbs are typically not designed for high use read/write cycles, plex uses a sqlite database and does a lot read/writes, and its highly likely that thumb drives used for metadata storage eventually will fail faster than an ssd intended for a primary pc desktop.

if your pc server plex data folder is only 86 gigs, then yes I would agree that 256g should be sufficient space, assuming again that thumbnails and such (which can use a lot of space) are not using up more storage than you expected.

logs: one last thing if the server is actually running/accessible, you can view and download logs @ Plex Web > settings > troubleshooting > download logs

or view them real time @ > settings > console

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Ok. The two prior times, the server hasn’t been running and wouldn’t start. Now that I know where to view the logs, I’ll be able to understand better what’s going on if/when it happens again.

Thanks again.

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while rebuilding your library, I would recommend do it smaller chunks.

whatever your smallest library is, do it first, let the shield import and finish all processing before adding more or other libraries to it.

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Just an FYI to set your system for debug, not verbose, logs. Verbose logs are rarely needed.

Settings → Server → General
Check the box for debug
Do not check the box for verbose.

The log files are a fixed size. Verbose causes them to wrap very quickly and desirable information may be lost. The extra information also makes them harder to read.

1 Like
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Yes, I have been doing this. It’s when I get to my Music library when I start having the problems. That’s why it’s taken a few days. I’ll add movies and shows, then when that’s settled down, music. I haven’t even been able to get to my pictures yet. :unamused:

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eh, music may take the shield a long long time to process.

it takes days on my regular server to do an initial import of ~200k tracks

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