I just set up the NAS, connected it to Plex and I’m ready to start moving files around and linking the directories to Plex. Before I invest more time in organizing things, I want to make sure my files are in the optimal locations.
After installing Plex I now have the ‘Plex’ shared folder and within that the ‘Library’ folder. It is my understanding that this is where media can be stored. I prefer to have my files in my own directories in a different shared folder.
My question is - will Plex streaming performance be the same if my files are not in the Plex/Library folder? Specifically, will the speed/transcoding still be the same if I store the files in my preferred location in Personal/Media/.
I can use the Plex/Library folder, I’m just curious if I can set it up where I prefer and not sacrifice performance.
I’d appreciate your advice/information/recommendations.
I wouldn’t store files in the directory “Plex” because Plex stores the metadata on this place. There are also “warning files” not to store any media files on this directory.
I would create a new shared folder called “Media” and give Plex R/W access to it. Then create a subfolder called “Movies” for the movies and “Shows” for TV shows.
See also
and
I don’t see why Plex should be slower if the media files are stored on another folder. Have you created just one single Volume (Volume 1)?
I think CPU performance, RAM memory and network throughput are more important than the place of folder. As long as Plex has access to it you should be good!
Please never put media in the Plex share. If you look, you’ll find I have placed 6 files there expressly requesting NOT to place media in six commonly spoken languages.
The CPU, RAM, Disks involved, and RAID structure impact performance.
In general, It’s not uncommon for a Synology to sustain 600 MB/sec which is more than enough given the typical networking limitations and of the CPUs Synology uses.
Where you will see performance issue, which can be mitigated, is when you have a large database. If that database is cached on a SSD, performance will be incredibly fast.
This is because SSDs have zero latency. They transfer data at 500+ MB/sec each when reading (400+ MB/sec writing). HDDs typically have the limit of SATA-3 interface and seek time latency to move the heads around
I prefer not to store the files in the Plex directory, but there appears to be no way for me to add folders outside of the Plex directory. I am trying to save my daughter’s soccer videos in a folder Personal/Media/Sports/Soccer/Kelsey but Plex doesn’t find it. I confirmed that the Plex has permissions to it in Synology but Plex doesn’t allow me to drill down to beyond 1-2 directory levels.
Also, when I dragged files to the Plex directory it seems to have copied them from my other directory. Are those duplicates or shortcuts? Are these files duplicates?
My FAQ might be of help here. It walks through setting up PMS on your Synology.
As for a place to put your media – that’s the easy part.
Control Panel
Shared Folders
Create
Give it a name
“Next” through until you see a “permissions” type page where you give different users permission to access it.
a. Give yourself R/W access
b. Give user Plex “Read-only”
Finish walking through that.
Done
(Synology is a very ‘point and shoot’ type system. Don’t over think it and you’ll be fine. It won’t let you make bad mistakes)
I understand what should be happening. I prefer to create individual shared libraries for each subset of media vs. one Media top folder. Plex will not allow me to navigate or select folder paths more than Personal/Media because they literally do not show up. when I navigate to them via the library selection tool. See attached. I should see the subdirectories for my ‘Personal’ folder based on the folder structure on my Synology drive but Plex does not show any folders under Personal (would appear on the right side). I’ve also tried entering the entire folder path in the address area by typing in /volume1/personal/media/sports/soccer/kelsey and then clicking ‘Add’. That allows me to save the library in Plex but because it was not able to see/read it the ‘normal’ way to add a directory it does not actually load the media in the folder. My Plex app on my AppleTV shows my Kelsey folder when I enter using the address but there is no media in it and it freezes/shuts down when the Plex app whenI try to access that library. There’s clearly an issue here.
See the permissions part in Chuck’s post above.
You might need to change permissions for your existing shares. It’s the same procedure… but instead of creating a new share (steps 3+4) select an existing one and click “edit”.
I deleted the shared folder completely then recreated it with the same name. It worked after doing that. For some reason it appears that the permissions set after creation did not override the permissions set at the time of the shared folder creation. Even though I know I had plex as read/write, it wasn’t allowing plex to read/write on the server.
