My power went and my server that was stored on the Nvidia Shield internal storage stopped working. I did a factory reset and moved the server to my 5TB WD_Black Game Drive where my media was stored.
After I done this Plex could be a bit slow to connect to the server and sometimes when I accessed my account on my desktop to arrange my libraries it would tell me my server was unavailable. The only way to make it available again was to go on the plex app on the nvidia shield.
I decided to move the server back to the Shield’s internal storage and it told me it was getting everything prepared, after a while I came back and the screen had gone, I went on to Plex and my server had disappeared again!
Now I’ve done a factory reset again. I want to know before I work on making all my playlists again if Plex media server would run better on a USB flash drive rather than my WD_Black? I would prefer for there not to be a speed lag but I definitely don’t want my server to stop running and having to force it to run by opening the Plex app on the shield.
Are you moving the app through the OS or using the “Modify Storage Location” option from within the Plex client app setting? I didn’t know you could move the app, so if that’s what you’ve done, I have no idea what should happen.
If you are changing the storage location (aka move the data folder) to the usb drive, that’s fine. Is the drive an SSD or HDD (spinning disk)? Plex reads and writes a lot of data simultaneously so what’s important is the random read speed, not the sequential read speed. An SSD would be much better for this.
If your drive is the HDD type and it powers down when not being used, it has to wake up before your data can be retrieved so this can take some time.
Do not use a USB flash drive, these are slow when it comes to random read and write speeds.
Would need to see the server logs to verify what is going on. If your drive goes to sleep PMS could become unavailable as the data folder would become inaccessible and PMS will not work when that folder cannot be found. It should work again when the folder becomes available. Turning on the Plex client app will look for your media so that would wake up the drive, the data folder becomes available, and PMS works. Are you able to set the drive to not go to sleep or some way to wake the drive outside of using Plex?
Thanks for your reply. I’m just moving the server not the app.
My hard drive is a HDD. I gave it a quick test running it on a usb flash drive and it is slow. I’ve decided to format my shield and run it off the Shield again. I was happy to keep it on the Shield, everything was working smoothly until the server disappeared.
I would just like to be able to backup the plex server in case it disappears again. I can’t see an option to do that with it on the Shield. The main thing that’s bothered me is I lost all my music playlists I spent so much time on. So I’m going to look into at least saving my playlists but a full backup of the server would be preferable.
PS since creating the new servers Plex isn’t showing the album art on most albums even though it all worked fine before from the same files and directories. So I’m hoping running the server on the Shield will fix that too.
I would just like to be able to backup the plex server in case it disappears again. I can’t see an option to do that with it on the Shield.
Move the “Storage location” to the user accessible portion of the internal drive. You can then access this from another computer and make a backup. To restore, you install PMS, change the location again to this, access from the computer and replace with the backup files.
I meant I moved the server in the Plex app settings.
Ok great thanks. There’s two folders I can see that are associated with Plex Media server, I’ve attached screenshots. Which one do I need to backup and where do I need to move it to, to make it accessible?
Thanks for the help I appreciate it. I understand what you mean about moving the plex media server to the user accessible internal storage now, it’s a default location in the Plex settings.
