Use the provided application install path to install Plex on Terramaster and not /Volume1

[rigveda]

Server Version#: Latest (Not relevant)
Player Version#:Latest (Not relevant)

NAS: Terramaster - Model: F5-221
TOS Version: 7.0.0309

Feature Request: Allow Applications to Fully Honor User-Selected Installation Volume Instead of Hardcoding Metadata to Volume1

I am writing to propose an enhancement to the Application Center in TOS 7 (and future versions) regarding application installation paths, particularly for apps like Plex Media Server.
Currently, users can specify a default installation volume in the Application Center settings (e.g., Volume3/@apps for binaries and core files).

However, certain applications, such as Plex Media Server, create a dedicated shared folder named “Plex” on Volume1 for storing metadata, databases, thumbnails, cache, and transcoding files. This occurs regardless of the selected installation volume, appearing to be a hardcoded behavior.
While this ensures consistency and proper permissions for the hidden “plex” application user, it limits flexibility for users with multi-volume setups. For instance:

It forces metadata storage on Volume1, which may be the system volume with limited capacity or higher priority for OS-related data.
It prevents full consolidation of application data on a dedicated high-capacity volume, complicating space management and backups.

Volume 1 folder view:

rigvedauser@TNAS:/Volume1/Plex# ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x+ 1 plex plex 38 Dec 26 23:36 Library
drwxrwxr-x+ 1 plex plex 80 Dec 26 23:36 tmp_transcoding

Requested Feature:
Please implement support for applications to fully respect the user-defined default installation path. This could include:

Storing all application-related data (including metadata, libraries, and cache) on the selected volume.
Optionally, providing a per-application setting to override the metadata path if needed for backward compatibility.
Ensuring the hidden application user (e.g., “plex”) has appropriate permissions and home directory on the chosen volume.

This enhancement would provide greater control over storage allocation, align with user expectations when selecting an installation volume, and improve usability for advanced configurations without compromising stability.
Thank you for considering this suggestion. I believe it would benefit many users managing larger or specialized storage pools.

[rigveda]

Is there anyone from the Plex engineering team who can review/ assist?

[OttoKerner]

The “installation path” is where the executable binaries of an app are stored.
The path where this app is storing its own data, is a separate thing.
This separation is good security practice (and is even observed on Windows). On Linux, (and therefore TOS) it is the default.

As far as I can see, TOS doesn’t provide an option to customize the location of an app’s data folder.

[rigveda]

I agree it is best practice to separate out app binaries from its own internal data. You should have different folders/ paths where it should sit.

The challenge is that in my setup, and the setup of many others with Terramaster is that one defines multiple storage volumes having different attributes and therefore uses. In my case:
/Volume1 - Is my 4x HDD disk TRAID array to store my library of media
/ Voume3 - Is a single SSD disk to store the TOS, app binaries and frankly any data that I can recreate (for example Plex album art, and other meta data about the media I host).

On TOS, I can specify the target Volume where I want Plex to be installed to, which is /Volume3. And I expect all related application binaries and its application data to reside there (in separate folders/ paths thats fine), but all residing in that Storage Pool.

Plex will then be provided the paths in /Volume1 where my media library is and can index and create all the metadata it needs and store in the /Volume3 (which is an SSD backed disk).

Right now, the Plex installation designed for Terramaster seems to install its binaries in /Volume3 (Storage Pool) and other parts in /Volume1 (RAID pool). To me, this strikes me as there is legacy code that is not actually checking for the target Storage pool and ALWAYS defaults to /Volume1 (i.e.: Even if I had 10 Storage volumes, it would ALWAYS default to /Volume1. This is a bug in the installation logic of Plex, not a feature.

So either, Plex need to modify or update their installation logic to ensure that it is using the passed Storage volume to install against consistently across its installation script that it built/ customised for Terramaster customers, and/or Terramaster needs to provide better documentation and guidance to 3rd party App providers (like Plex) on how to work with TOS’ Application Configuration - Default Installation Location.

[ChuckPa]

@rigveda

Does this setting in App Center not apply?
(We have no internal app control where PMS is installed)

Regarding Plex on a single HDD -
Those with large media libraries will argue that the faster performance of the array and the data reliability (in case of drive failure) warrants putting Plex on the array.

On my NAS, the OS is first volume. Media is second (HDD) volume, Apps (Plex) is third volume (SSD RAID)