I currently use a 2TB USB 3 External Hard-drive for my Plex Media Server library, including the metadata. Recently purchased a 4TB drive to replace it since my library is outgrowing its home. Do I simply copy all files to the new drive, or are there hidden files that won’t copy over? Any suggestions?
Thank you! I presume all metadata is contained in one of the existing folders. I’ll give it a try. Sounds easy enough. Again thanks!
Metadata is kept on the OS disk as default, but since you never gave details, hard to tell 
Metadata is NOT kept among your medias (Videos and Shows)
My bad. I thought I read somewhere recently that you could move metadata to an external hard drive where your content resided.
You can on Windows, but req. manual tweaks
Look for LocalAppDataPath in this: https://support.plex.tv/articles/201105343-advanced-hidden-server-settings
For other platforms, a symbolic link would do to the Library directory
Using PMS on Shield TV only. Think I’m gonna leave things as is. Don’t need to go and mess things up. Thanks for your guidance.
Okay, I copied everything over to the new, larger, hard drive. I named the drive exactly the same as the old, existing, drive. However, PMS on Shield TV does not see the new drive. It says No Servers Found. I plugged in the old drive and the Server popped back up. Something is preventing PMS from seeing the new drive. My Nvidia Shield TV sees it fine. I’ve also restarted the Shield, Forced Stopped both the Plex App and the PMS app. No help. Any suggestions?
Sadly no, since not a shield guy…
The procedures I was pointing towards, are general ones, that works for all platforms…
But getting deeper into this, req. a shield guy, so standby, while I try to get some help here
Thank you!
I have a similar problem,
Same actual drive (been using for a while), but enclosed in a USB3 enclosure instead of the existing USB2 enclosure, shield reports the drive as now unsupported unless I reformat it.
I don’t want to reformat as it contains my plex metadata as well as all my media
Mine is brand new. Reformatted it upon arrival and copied everything from the existing drive, making sure to mirror it. Also renamed the new drive the same as the existing drive. When I plug it in to my Shield is says there’s no server. However, I can see everything on the network. When I plug in the the old one, it sees it fine.
My metadata is located on my expanded memory (USB drive). I just want it to work because I’m running out of disk space on the old drive.
Okay, here’s an update. I believe my issue is fixed!!
I had moved my metadata to the external hard drive prior to the Oreo release and prior to getting the new hard drive. I moved it back to the expanded memory, or at least I thought I did. It was still on the old removable drive. When I unplugged the old drive, I lost my server. Duh! So, this evening I managed to move the metadata successfully this time and my Server stayed on. That fixed the PMS from going down and getting the No Servers Found message when going to Plex. Problem #1 fixed!
As far as the new drive was concerned, I set it up correctly but the PMS on the Shield was still seeing the metadata from the old drive. So I needed to delete the old drive. I Edited each Library, and under Add Folders, I deleted the old drive. Then I emptied the trash. That was scary. Everything disappeared. Currently, all Libraries are rebuilding, using the new drive and the metadata found on the expanded memory.
Since Android is built on a Linux system, it creates an identifier for each drive. Once we identified which drive was which, it made it possible to eliminate the old and usher in the new.
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