Server Version#: 1.14.0.5470
Player Version#: all sorts
The function within PLEX to “backup database every three days” results in a set of files that collectively are about 9 gig big.
First question - when and or how does one restore these files if you ever need to recreate the server? What is in them?
Second question.
For grins I thought I would back up the AppData\Local\Plex Media Server directory. Turns out there are millions and millions of files in there. The backup took a week. This directory has a folder structure that never stops. It contails graphcs and text for each show, album, movie, etc. The thig is freaking huge.
Is there a reason to back that up? What is the difference between the first backup above and backing up this directory? Wouldn’t you want to back this up so if you had to move your PLEX server to another box (since PLEX doesn’t have an export import server function), you could just move the whole thing over there?
Just curious since running a backup script on that directory is a huge load.
I do not even attempt to backup anything except the Plex database and my media files themselves.
I keep backups of most of my media files off site as well as the built in redundancy that my DrivePool system has.
I see no reason for any more backup because the database contains my watched status and the media is only truly hard thing to recover.
If disaster happens and I recover my media and database Plex will rebuild everything else on its own without my intervention. All those “little” files are not really needed to be backed up since they get recreated so easily.
So is the only stuff in the official internal ‘backup’ that PLEX creates the actual set up of the server settings, users, shares, libraries, etc? If so you may have a point. Yeah, it may take me a week to clean up the movies that get the wrong names or posters and you move on. I’ve got all the media backup up offsite.
Has anyone ever (or anyone remember) if when you create a server does it ask if you have files to restore?
For me - just replaced a drive that Plex was on - the biggest thing to get is the setup and library assigns. Most of the rest is marked as bundle extension on a directory. If you do not save them when you restart PLEX those will have to be fetched again. So it is flip if the coin to do it or not. It is up to your network performance.
If want back all that up… zip the directory first the save the zip(s). That is because all the small files are normally seperately saved if you are coping to to an external drive. So the shear number of them takes a long while. I have 800,000 files I moved them by major directory so a could run 8 jobs at one time breaking the work load and shortening the copy time.
Now as a backup, I actually use a second PLEX install. And sync my actual media so I have a complete copy and the backup server.
For me that backup is RPi3B+ with 2 4TB drives. My media is all encoded at 480p. So a RPi can play back 2 streams at one time. Not powerful enough transcode on its own.
Since I have visualsbilty issues 480 upscale on 1080. I do not see artifacts.
My physical server consists of 13 drives and I do nothin other than have Plex store its appdata directory on one of those drives.
Coupled with a backup of a registry key or two its job done.
Reinstall Windows point the new Plex install to the existing appdata directory, restore the registry key(s) and its pretty much job done in 5 minutes.
