I already use Plex with a networked attached drive across our 1Gb LAN and it’s working great with a dedicated Mac-Mini server running Plex.
I’m adding a new networked attached drive to increase the storage, because I’m running low on space with the first one, as I guess I’ve been adding too many TV Shows and Movies.
Question: Can I have a single TV Show span multiple drives?
I mean… I have a TV Show on the current networked drive setup as follows:
Name of Show
– Season 1
— Episode 2
— Episode 3
— Episode 4
So, I install the additional networked attached drive and as new episodes for my typical show start arriving, can I simply place them under TV Shows (adding directory to Plex) and continue as follows:
Name of Show
– Season 1
— Episode 5
— Episode 6
— Episode 7
So, when I view the TV Show in Plex, will it show (and find) all of the episodes under one Plex listing?
… or, Plan B… start moving entire shows from one networked attached drive (freeing up space) to the new networked attached drive in their entirety, then delete the show’s files on the old networked attached drive, followed by running “Update Libraries”?
Is that the proper procedure for Plan B?
Thanks for any feedback as I’d hate to screw up my huge Plex environment with over 1600 movies and hundreds of TV Shows which is currently running just fine, other than I’m running low on space.
Regards,
Doug
That’s a great “Plan C” if you have to do it ! 
As long as you avoid replication and there is a parent 'Series" directory above it all, you will be fine. (Series/1-3 on A and Series/4-7 on B). I would try to slowly work out the mechanics of getting them spit into ‘movies’ and tv
.
FWIW, I have movies, movie2, tv, and tv2. Not for unified storage but for backups. Each NAS share fits on a 6TB drive
@ChuckPA said:
That’s a great “Plan C” if you have to do it ! 
As long as you avoid replication and there is a parent 'Series" directory above it all, you will be fine. (Series/1-3 on A and Series/4-7 on B).
Thanks Chuck… so, they way I’ve showed the mapping in my first post will work fine?
Can you show me a mapped example? The comment … parent 'Series" directory above it all … confuses me a bit, although my wife would say that’s because if you give him a coffee break, you’ll have to retrain him …
Regards,
Doug
Doug,
Just as you have it.
TV1/
Series/
Season 3/
Series - S03E01 - title.ext
TV2/
Series/
Season 4/
Series - S04E01 - title.ext
In Plex, you add ‘TV1’ as a search folder. Next you add ‘TV2’ as a search folder. click Save and magic happens. >:)
What it looks like in PMS after you browse and add the folder… (using my movies as example)
@ChuckPA said:
Doug,
Just as you have it.
Thanks Chuck… appreciate the clarity…
Regards,
Doug
@ChuckPA said:
TV1/
Series/
Season 3/
Series - S03E01 - title.ext
TV2/
Series/
Season 4/
Series - S04E01 - title.ext
In Plex, you add ‘TV1’ as a search folder. Next you add ‘TV2’ as a search folder. click Save and magic happens. >:)
I experienced some “weirdness” in the past when I did this once.
I recommend to avoid it and collect all episodes of one tv show onto one storage volume.
If Otto has experience which indicates otherwise, then we use his approach
Thanks OttoKerner …
So, will my Plan B described in Post #1 work as an alternative and Plex will find and use the same files on the new drive with its existing Plex Database entry for a TV series?
Regards,
Doug
Thank you for the excellent clarification …
Regards,
Doug
Ok… I setup the new Synology NAS along side my current one. I now have another 30 Tb of extra content capability …
I created TV Shows and Movies directories on the new server and added them to Plex to scan, which went fine.
I ran a test on a typical TV series…
- I copied one of my old TV Shows series consisting of its directory and its files to the new TV Shows directory on the new drive.
- I ran update on the library and yes, the episodes now showed a ‘duplicate’ indicator.
- I then erased the old TV Shows series consisting of its directory and its files from the old drive.
- I noticed immediately that the TV Show series in question that I had moved disappeared from Plex. I don’t know why considering the database still had access to the new set of files on the new server? It appears Plex software code thought it needed to delete all of the database information about this tv series, as the result of my deleting the folder and contents from at least one of the sets of files. Maybe I should I have deleted the extra files from within Plex under “Info” settings instead of using a file system delete, but that would take forever on an episode by episode basis.
- So, I ran update on the library again and the TV show re-appeared as a new “Recently Added” tv series, although it didn’t populate the Plex database with some of the custom content I had added with the old database entry. It appears to get lost using this method of transfer, which is a shame.
- I then emptied the “trash”.
Is there a better method of handling this process that would simply maintain the old database information and ONLY eliminate the extra duplicated files from the old server?
Thanks for any other suggestions …
Regards,
Doug
@Badgerdog said:
- I copied one of my old TV Shows series consisting of its directory and its files to the new TV Shows directory on the new drive.
Did you add both NAS locations the same way into your library?
e.g. \ as1\share v shows + \ as2\share v shows2
I hope, you did not reference the subfolder for this particular show directly?
Is this tv show organised exactly like it’s supposed to be (with proper season subfolders etc)?
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220687-Naming-Series-Season-Based-TV-Shows
Did you change filenames or folder organisation during the move from one NAS to the other?
- I then erased the old TV Shows series consisting of its directory and its files from the old drive.
I assume that you updated your library after the deleting was done?
- I noticed immediately that the TV Show series in question that I had moved disappeared from Plex.
Was your tv show previously recognized at all by Plex? Or was it ‘unmatched’ and you simply overwrote all its metadata with your own?
Maybe I should I have deleted the extra files from within Plex under “Info” settings instead of using a file system delete, but that would take forever on an episode by episode basis.
I am unsure whether this would’ve been a viable approach.
Is there a better method of handling this process that would simply maintain the old database information and ONLY eliminate the extra duplicated files from the old server?
The way I told it is the official way, which should have worked. At least with a properly matched tv show.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201154537-Move-Media-Content-to-a-New-Location
You can go back to an older version of your Plex database with this procedure
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/202485658-Restore-a-Database-Backed-Up-via-Scheduled-Tasks-
thereby restoring the tv show in question.
(only if you did not ‘clean bundles’ in the mean time. then custom posters may be lost.)
@OttoKerner said:
@Badgerdog said:
- I copied one of my old TV Shows series consisting of its directory and its files to the new TV Shows directory on the new drive.
Did you add both NAS locations the same way into your library?
e.g. \ as1\share v shows + \ as2\share v shows2
Yes… I did…
I hope, you did not reference the subfolder for this particular show directly?
No, I didn’t …
Is this tv show organised exactly like it’s supposed to be (with proper season subfolders etc)?
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220687-Naming-Series-Season-Based-TV-Shows
Yes, it is …
Did you change filenames or folder organisation during the move from one NAS to the other?
No, I didn’t…
- I then erased the old TV Shows series consisting of its directory and its files from the old drive.
I assume that you updated your library after the deleting was done?
Yes, I did… that was Step 5 and that’s how it found the TV series on the new NAS storage, but treated it as a recent addition and rebuilt the database entry for it, but as a new one…
- I noticed immediately that the TV Show series in question that I had moved disappeared from Plex.
Was your tv show previously recognized at all by Plex? Or was it ‘unmatched’ and you simply overwrote all its metadata with your own?
Yes, it was just fine…
Maybe I should I have deleted the extra files from within Plex under “Info” settings instead of using a file system delete, but that would take forever on an episode by episode basis.
I am unsure whether this would’ve been a viable approach.
Probably not, but I bet it works fine, except it’s a long way round to solve a simple problem. Will test it tonight…
Is there a better method of handling this process that would simply maintain the old database information and ONLY eliminate the extra duplicated files from the old server?
The way I told it is the official way, which should have worked. At least with a properly matched tv show.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201154537-Move-Media-Content-to-a-New-Location
You can go back to an older version of your Plex database with this procedure
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/202485658-Restore-a-Database-Backed-Up-via-Scheduled-Tasks-
thereby restoring the tv show in question.
(only if you did not ‘clean bundles’ in the mean time. then custom posters may be lost.)
Thanks for your feedback…
Since I only did 1 TV show as a test, I don’t need to do anything else such as a restore. Thank God I didn’t do a LOT of shows…
I think there’s a bug in the Plex code when one physically deletes via an operating system command, any show content outside the database. I think that it picks up the fact that files are deleted and ignores the fact that there’s duplicate files for that show elsewhere, then simply removes the database information.
Regards,
Doug
