My Plex server is a VM. I made the VM’s disk space rather smaller (when back when space for a Plex server didn’t require much space). Now with all the graphics and what not space sometimes is an issue.
I’d like to be able to have Plex store all the supporting media on a network drive… And be able to just “move” the existing so I don’t have to rebuild everything.
If you go into your server’s General Settings and show advanced then you see a “The path where local application data is stored”. It will use the folder “Plex Media Server” within that location.
I just don’t remember if you need to move the eisting folder before or after you make the change there. It’s been so long since I changed it.
Maybe copy the folder from the old location to the new and then delete the old one after the change is made?
And don’t forget to back up first.
Moving the entire appdata folder to a network drive is a bad idea. Plex stores your metadata info in an SQLite database which does not work well over a network. The best option is to move the metadata and media folders over to your network drive, then create symlink in their original location to point to the new spot.
MovieFan.Plex - is the problem with SQLite when using a UNC path? In that case, under Windows, couldn’t you just map the share to a drive letter and avoid the symlink? That may be easier for a non-tech user.
But then we don’t know which OS the OP is running. That’s missing from the long Sig.
—BTW - thanks for the Database Tool. Helped me a lot when moving watched statuses.
No. I don’t know the details but when the database file is on a network drive, there are delays and other network things that interferes with the read/write timing of the file. You can easily end up with corrupted entries in the database which leads to things failing in PMS. You can do it, there is nothing physically stopping PMS from seeing the database file anywhere you want to put it, but you risk getting lots of errors.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
Moving the entire appdata folder to a network drive is a bad idea. Plex stores your metadata info in an SQLite database which does not work well over a network. The best option is to move the metadata and media folders over to your network drive, then create symlink in their original location to point to the new spot.
I’m using Ubuntu. The media folder copied no problem. I’m getting errors copying the metadata folder to the NAS - it’s saying : Error making symbolic link - operation not supported.
You had mentioned moving those (2) folders a year ago - is this no longer suggested?
How is the drive in the NAS formatted? Symbolic links are not supported in all formats. In Windows for example, Microsoft’s new ReFS doesn’t support them, nor certain drive pooling techniques.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
How is the drive in the NAS formatted? Symbolic links are not supported in all formats. In Windows for example, Microsoft’s new ReFS doesn’t support them, nor certain drive pooling techniques.
Windows is showing it as NTFS. It’s mounted as cifs. I Don’t recall being able to choose a format - just the Raid level. Any opinion on moving the Cache folder to the network storage?
Oh wait. Are you using Windows or Ubuntu? I’m confused.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
Oh wait. Are you using Windows or Ubuntu? I’m confused.
My Plex server is Ubuntu. I looked at the NAS format from a windows machine.
What’s the exact command you are using to make the symlink?
Early 2021 clean-up: duplicate
