I’m pondering moving my Plex Media Server from my Mac Mini to my Synology 416+. I’ve made a LOT of customisations to sort order of movies and to collections. Plus I don’t want to lose my current watched / unwatched marks.
Both locations will point to the exact same media. It’s not the media itself that is causing me concern. Rather, it’s the metadata. The data about this media, which is currently only stored in the PMS database on the Mac Mini.
I don’t use any third party databases. I just use what ever it is Plex itself uses by default upon install.
I asked the question because searching online and in these forums I never quite found what I was after. Your reponse was the key to the bits that were missing from what I had previously found. Really appreciate it @ChuckPA.
I thought I’d return and do a step by step of what it was I did for moving from a Mac Mini to a Synology NAS. It’s not complete as yet, but at this point it’s pretty much garanteed it’ll work out exactly as I wanted it to. I mostly made these notes for when I upgrade my NAS in the future (as this one will one day become too old/slow for me). So when the time comes, unless the process has changed dramatically, I’ll be ready.
Moving Plex from Mac Mini to a Synology NAS.
Install Plex Media Server on the NAS. Do any basic config you’re after for server settings. Don’t worry about libraries as yet.
Make sure both are set to NOT empty trash automatically after a scan. This setting is in Settings → Server → Library.
On the Mac, open Terminal.
Back up the Mac Mini’s Plex Database:
Shut down Plex Media Server application.
Change to the data location used by Plex Media Server
~ cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/
Zip it up to a file on the desktop
~ tar cfz ~/Desktop/PlexBackup-Mac-Mini-Plex-2018-02-08.tar.gz *
Copy PlexBackup-Mac-Mini-Plex-2018-02-08.tar.gz to a location on the NAS, I used the mounted share /Volumes/Install/
Back up the NAS’s Plex Database (just in case):
Shut down Plex Media Server using Synology Package Manager.
SSH to username@NAS-IP-Address
~ ssh username@ipaddress
Once logged in, sudo to root as a standard Administrator / Admin account won’t have the required access.
~ sudo sh
Enter root’s password - if you’re not sure try the password of the Administrator / Admin account.
Change to the data location used by Plex Media SErver
~ cd /volume1/Plex/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/
Zip it up to a file on the Installs directory
~ tar cfz /volume1/Installs/PlexBackup-NAS-Plex-2018-02-08.tar.gz *
Replace the NAS’s Plex Database with one from a backup:
Change to the data location used by Plex Media SErver
~ cd /volume1/Plex/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/
that targets exactly the issue I am having right now.
TVS-682, 1x1TB SSD for caching, 4X8TB HD RAID 5. My Plex is currently entirely on my Mac mini with a connected 8 TB external HD. AVR is the Yamaha RX-3040.
Files are already transferred to my NAS. I want to transfer my complete metadata from MAC to NAS as well. Using the TVS-682 as PMS and connected through HDMI (HD station) to my AVR who sends the signal to my Sony 75inch. This one is tested and works.
Question to the experts who did that already:
You talk about backing up the databases in the MAC and in the NAS. Can’t I do the whole transfer not as well without the back up process? I would just simply copy the MAC database first to my NAS and then replace the Plex Database over there following your instructions.
Were you successful in porting over your database? Im trying to do mine but I cant get it to work. When I Launch plex. It tells me no libraries are found.
