@ChuckPa Thanks for the lengthy explanation and thanks for taking the time. It is however rather unfortunate that you completely missed the tentative bug report listed here Plex constantly writes to Plug-in Support/Databases/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-{shm,wal} (for lack of a proper public bug tracker for Plex) and specifically the part where I explain that the problem me and others are reporting is directly related to clients being connected on the server network (idle clients, that is) and the two specific files that get near constantly written to (the sqlite shared-memory and write-ahead log). That activity ceases as soon as no clients are connected.
FWIW I have disabled all login to the maximum extent possible, and I have no problem with the scheduled maintenance and library housekeeping you describe. The log files (in the Logs folder) don’t even begin to register in the disk I/O we’re talking about.
And while I hear your appreciation of how disks (be them rotating or solid state) age, I have my own experience in the field (having dealt with pools of hundreds of drives), and I might see otherwise. Finally, you seem to ignore the induced power usage. Any unnecessary disk activity, however small, translates into real power usage when it happens 24/7.
I hope someone can actually look into this technical issue and hopefully improve the situation.
Thanks
