Wow, yeah!
I really don’t understand why this trick is not between the sticky posts, I was googling for hours before to find this solution, while a lot of people are saying there is no way to move plex data on adopted storage!
The reason Plex doesn’t support moving PMS to adoptable storage is that adoptable storage does not support symlinks which PMS uses for posters.
Have you tried to add movies to your server? Do you see posters?
@“MovieFan.Plex”
Of course I tried, and it works as expected (I see posters).
As I can see, PMS does not support moving data to the external adopted storage just because of its app manifest: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/manifest-element.html#install
Can you confirm that the movie poster data also got moved to the adopted storage? As far as I know, moving the app can be done just like you said, however the metadata folder uses symlinks which we’ve found does not work on adopted storage.
@“MovieFan.Plex” said:
Can you confirm that the movie poster data also got moved to the adopted storage? As far as I know, moving the app can be done just like you said, however the metadata folder uses symlinks which we’ve found does not work on adopted storage.
No, Movie posters will not work if moved/symlinked to Adoptive Storage while Plex PMS is installed on internal, Plugins will work Symlinked just fine though.
@“MovieFan.Plex” , @goose2600 (Me included & many others) has used a different method to have Plex PMS & all its data completely on Adoptive Storage using this method. [GUIDE] How to install Plex Media Server on external storage (Micro SD or USB Flash) | XDA Forums
Root,
Uninstall Plex PMS completely from Shield,
Force all apps to Adoptive Storage in Dev Settings,
Install/Send Plex PMS from Google Store to Shield through browser,
Plex PMS & all data is now located on Adoptive Storage & all works just as it would from internal storage.
@Strategizer8520 is right, I used the mentioned method from xda.
@Strategizer8520 said:
No, Movie posters will not work if moved/symlinked to Adoptive Storage while Plex PMS is installed on internal, Plugins will work Symlinked just fine though.
Right, from our testing symlinks do not work when they are on the adopted storage, if they stay on internal and just point to the adopted storage that works so the plugins thing makes sense. And posters not working since the symlink for posters would not be on the adopted storage.
@“MovieFan.Plex” , @goose2600 (Me included & many others) has used a different method to have Plex PMS & all its data completely on Adoptive Storage using this method. [GUIDE] How to install Plex Media Server on external storage (Micro SD or USB Flash) | XDA Forums
This is the part I don’t get. Moving the app to adopted storage would cause the metadata to also get moved to adopted storage and the symlinks to the posters should no longer work. Unless what is happening is that only the app portion is moved but the metadata is still on internal. This is what I was hoping someone could confirm. Where is the metadata folder? Is it really on the adopted storage.
I can confirm that metadata is really on the adopted storage (/mnt/expand/longstoragecode/user/0/).
I have simlink just for the plugins folder, because can’t write on data partition, even if is on the adopted storage.
@“MovieFan.Plex” said:
@Strategizer8520 said:
No, Movie posters will not work if moved/symlinked to Adoptive Storage while Plex PMS is installed on internal, Plugins will work Symlinked just fine though.
Right, from our testing symlinks do not work when they are on the adopted storage, if they stay on internal and just point to the adopted storage that works so the plugins thing makes sense. And posters not working since the symlink for posters would not be on the adopted storage.@“MovieFan.Plex” , @goose2600 (Me included & many others) has used a different method to have Plex PMS & all its data completely on Adoptive Storage using this method. [GUIDE] How to install Plex Media Server on external storage (Micro SD or USB Flash) | XDA Forums
This is the part I don’t get. Moving the app to adopted storage would cause the metadata to also get moved to adopted storage and the symlinks to the posters should no longer work. Unless what is happening is that only the app portion is moved but the metadata is still on internal. This is what I was hoping someone could confirm. Where is the metadata folder? Is it really on the adopted storage.
As @goose2600 said, All of Plex PMS & its data is 100% on Adoptive Storage using the method above. The app isnt “Moved”, Its been deleted completely from the system, Then re-installed from the play store while “Force apps to USB” is enabled in Dev Settings. All of “com.plexapp.mediaserver.smb” install data (Metadata & everything else) is located on Adoptive Storage in (/mnt/expand/longstoragecode/user/0/), No sign of it on internal at all. Still need to Symlink the Plugins folder to /sdcard though, As goose2600 said.
I have another Shield setup like this. 9GB Plex PMS data size, But only 1.6GB of internal storage used (Size of all system apps combined, & 9GB of adoptive storage used. It works just like that ^^^ That’s why so many of us are left scratching our head when Plex PMS is forced on the very limited internal storage, But has been proven to work just fine from a much lager/faster adoptive storage, If not better.
Thanks guys for the confirmation. This is just strange as this goes against the results of our testing. Maybe something changed with the latest firmware that we were unaware of. I’ve notified the developers of this and they will be looking into it. If this does truly work, we would definitely be interested in making this official.
I’ve been looking at possibly purchasing a Shield and was wondering, with this rooting method on the 16GB, would I be able to store PMS across my network on an external hard drive that’s attached to my computer? This is also where my library files would reside as well. Or would I just need to get a smaller hard drive and attach directly to the Shield for app storage?
@steveh11284 said:
I’ve been looking at possibly purchasing a Shield and was wondering, with this rooting method on the 16GB, would I be able to store PMS across my network on an external hard drive that’s attached to my computer? This is also where my library files would reside as well. Or would I just need to get a smaller hard drive and attach directly to the Shield for app storage?
You never ever want to store Plex data anywhere but on drives internal or attached to the device where the Plex server is running. Any networked storage will, sooner rather than later, cause access failures or database corruption. If adopted storage on the Shield can be made to work then that would, most probably, be fine but when you move the data out to a networked drive the chances of corruption of the database increases exponentially.
Using an attached drive has some risk due to the increased possibility of some kind of poor communication or power drops to the external drive but that risk is pretty low.
Media files are fine on networked drives because little glitches and interruptions matter little in streaming but in database access it matters a LOT.
This method let you only to store the PMS’s data (not the libraries, but metadata and databases) on an external storage, directly attached to the Shield as “adopted storage”.
In this case, I suggest to get a msata flash drive.
Edit: @Elijah_Baley was faster than me 
Interesting option here to get PMS server on Adopted storage. Hope Plex investigate and come up with a solution. I was making my decision on which version to purchase just at the time when the new 16 Gig model was being launched and decided to get the 16Gig with an external 256Gig SSD as adopted storage because i expected it to perform better than the PRO with spinning disks. The Plex issue was not one that I was aware of at the time. I have been patiently waiting on a solution but not keen to root my shield because i see too many having trouble with rooted shields with every new update on the shield.
Hopefully with this new information PLEX can resolve this once and for all.
The root method does not make a magic, it just allows user to choose the install location, overriding the app’s manifes (by toggling the proper setting in developer options).
Plex should declare the attribute android:installLocation="auto" in the app manifest, to let user to choose where to install PMS (and Nvidia should move the PMS from system apps to user apps).
Edit: my Shield is rooted from the first day I got it and never experienced a problem! 
I just ordered a 16Gb Shield partially to upgrade my Raspberry Pi Plex server. Until moving PMS onto adopted storage is solved officially, I plan to root my shield and install it with the mentioned method from XDA.
I’d think that with rooting I would have to update the Shield manually. Is it possible to unroot after installing PMS to adopted storage to get autoupdates? Would PMS still run like that? Further more, would the PMS app still autoupdate?
@toemke said:
I’d think that with rooting I would have to update the Shield manually. Is it possible to unroot after installing PMS to adopted storage to get autoupdates? Would PMS still run like that? Further more, would the PMS app still autoupdate?
Nvidia OTA updates should works, but actually I will know when Nvidia will push the next update.
On other Android devices, a custom recovery (ie Twrp) could break OTA updates, but you can fix it simply by flashing the stock recovery via adb.
Once updated, you have just to reroot (I am running Magisk systemless root).
Nvidia itself ships a developer OS image (I never tried it): https://developer.nvidia.com/shield-developer-os-images
PMS gets official updates from Google Play, as it is a normal app.
Obviously, if you unplug the external storage the PMS disappears until it’s plugged back.
MovieFan.Plex - Please update us if the developers think this will work or if it won’t work. I’d rather take the official updates than go through the hassles that rooting could bring.
Thanks!
@erwinfj said:
MovieFan.Plex - Please update us if the developers think this will work or if it won’t work. I’d rather take the official updates than go through the hassles that rooting could bring.Thanks!
I too am interested in this. Wondering whether using the shield as server is better than a more powerful nas. I have to upgrade the nas as I’m at its capacity.
Well, In other news, Emby just released their server for android in a form of a .apk, That can be sideloaded & forced to adoptive storage without root
Wonder how long it’ll take Plex to fix this little issue knowing that Emby user’s already have this feature & its only been out a week or two…
