I have several times had situations where my Plex Server has crashed over the years of usage. Every time I have had to reload my movie library and start from scratch with categorize the movies within “Collections” and mark the movie as “watched”. This can be tiring with more than 1000 movies. Is there a way or trick to save that data so it’s restored when the library is reloaded? Can always hope that the server never crashes again, but why be too optimistic. 
Thanks for any suggestions.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201539237-backing-up-plex-media-server-data/
On a larger server device, you could use a separate hard drive for the Plex data folder. If the main hard drive gets erased, you still have your Plex data safe in the second drive.
I do have my data file (the movie library) stored on an external Drobo hard drive. So I always have the “movies” safe. It’s the reference data that I would like to have a backup of, so I don’t have to renter all the “reference” data such as if the movie has
been watched or not and to what personal collection it belongs. So the times when I have had to reload the PMS software from scratch that info has always been missing. Typically, when I have started from scratch, I have always loaded the PMS file, created
new libraries and downloaded the “movies” into those again. Is there a better way to do that so I don’t have to enter all the reference data again?
That is what the article is about.
Thanks OttoKerner for your advise. Have now backed up both the …Plexmediaserver.plist and the folders in the “library/application support/Plex media server” location.
Hope I never have to use them. If I do, I may reach out to get advise on how to restore everything again. In which order (library, backup info, etc…)
Don’t forget to refresh the backup from time to time.
And don’t answer per email, you have your clear name and your email address in the footer.
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