Move Media Content to a New Location

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201154537-move-media-content-to-a-new-location/ 

 As your media collection grows, you might upgrade to a larger hard drive, install a NAS, or otherwise simply have a need to move your content to a new location. 

 Note : We always recommend  Backing Up Plex Media Server Data  data before making major changes to your library. 

 

 Upgrading a Hard Drive 

 If you’re simply upgrading to a new/larger hard drive, the easiest thing to do is to name the new location  exactly  the same as the original one. That means simply making sure the new hard drive is named exactly the same as the old one, and that the media files are in the same location. 

 The general procedure is outlined below. For this example, we’ll assume that your content is currently on a hard drive named  MyMediaDrive . 

 

 Quit/exit your Plex Media Server 

 Re-name the  old  hard drive to a different name (e.g.  OriginalMediaDrive ) 

 Name the  new  hard drive to the exact same name as the original drive (i.e.  MyMediaDrive ) 

 Copy the content from the old drive to the new drive,  making sure  that the content ends up in the same relative location 

 Start the Plex Media Server 

 

 If you’ve done things correctly, your server won’t even know that anything has changed and your content will work right away. 

 

 Moving Content to a New Location 

 If you need to move content to a new location, you’ll have to go through a few additional steps. 

 Preparation 

 Disable Emptying of Trash 

 On your Plex Media Server, you’ll want to  disable  the  Empty trash automatically after every scan  preference for the server. 

 Related Page :  Library 

 Stop the Plex Media Server 

 Quit or exit the Plex Media Server so that it is no longer running. 

 Copy Content to the New Location 

 Copy your media files to the desired location. You don’t necessarily have to keep the same relative folder structure if you don’t wish to do so. 

 Update your Plex Media Server Configuration 

 Start the Plex Media Server 

 Once your content is available on the new location, start your Plex Media Server. 

 Launch Plex Web App 

 Open your Plex Web App and you should see your libraries, though your content is unlikely to work yet. 

 Related Page :  Opening Plex Web App 

 Edit Your Libraries 

 In order to update the content location for your media, you’ll need to  Edit  a library and then add the appropriate folder for where your content is now located. Leave the existing/previous folder location in there for now. 

 You’ll need to do this for each of your libraries, but you should probably complete the process for one at a time. 

 Related Page :  Editing Libraries 

 Update the Library 

 After adding the new content folder, a scan of the library will probably start. If not, simply do a standard  Scan Library Files . 

 The server will examine the contents of the new location and associate the content with the existing media items in your library. 

 Related Page :  Library Actions 

 Remove Old Content Location 

 Once everything is completed and you’ve verified that things are working correctly and you can access your content, you can remove the old content location for your libraries. To do so,  Edit  the library and remove the old/previous folder location. 

 Once removed, you may need to empty your library trash in order to remove the entries where the content was stored at the old content location.