My WD Pr2100 is getting old. I’m thinking of switching to one of my lesser favorite laptops as a Plex Server. Been a while since I dived into this stuff. My question is what to put my media on. Is a WD My Book or Elements robust enough to run 24/7? If not what would you suggest? After transfer, the drives in the PR2100 will be available for a DAS. Any suggestions in that regard. Appreciate any and all comments to get me going in the right direction
Why not keeping the WD as a NAS? And only the Plex server goes to a different machine. Surely the NAS is still fast enough to deliver a few video files unchanged, right? Particularly if it doesn’t have to do all the other stuff a Plex server might have to do.
As Otto said, use the PR2100 solely as a NAS and install Plex in a PC.
I have the same model and that’s the way I use it. Just as media storage. No apps.
Okay, that seems like a good alternative. Can you transfer the metadata or have to rebuild all that on a new server? Thanks fo r the responses.
That is a loaded question. Theoretically, yes. But you need to know your way around both Linux and Windows if you want to use Windows on the Laptop. And only some of the data will survive the move.
See Move an Install to Another System.
What OS will you run on the new server?
Have a crappy HP laptop that I installed Kubuntu. Thought it might be best. Still concerned about ability to migrate metadata.
See Migration from another OS to Linux.
Basically, tar/zip the Plex Data Folder on the WD, then move it to the laptop, decompress & set ownership & permissions.
There’s a few extra steps, so see the support document.
Also, don’t install Plex as a Snap package. Use bare metal (dpkg -i) or Docker.
