Guidance upgrading to a clean installation of v6

[zero_koop]

For various reasons that I'm still trying to figure out, my version of v5 has become corrupt and since I was planning on upgrading to v6 anyway I figured now is the time.  I'm running new hardware (mostly the same old HDDs) and I'm probably going to have a few questions that are outside the "upgrading to v6 guide": http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Upgrading_to_UnRAID_v6

 

Here are my current questions:

1. I am booted into v6 and I'm looking at the drive assignment.  My 2 data drives are the exact same as my old setup and luckily I have a screenshot of my v5 main page so I know which two they are.  My 3rd drive is my parity drive.  This is a newer drive that does not appear in the previously mentioned screenshot (but by process of elimination I know which one it is).  So I'm about 99% certain I have selected the right drives for parity and data 1 and data 2 based on the names of the drives (and sizes).  Is there anything else I need to consider before I click "start"?

edit: let me rephrase my question: how do I know that UnRAID isn't going to think this is a new disk and erase the data on my disk when I click start vs. recognizing that this is an existing data disk?

2. On my previous installation of v5 I ran a Plex server.  I did not get a chance to backup any of my Plex server data or settings.  Does anyone have any suggestions for retrieving the important configuration files (i.e. where they are located, what files, custom artwork, custom video descriptions, watched status, etc.)?

3. I didn't do a whole lot of configuration changes in my v5 installation, but I didn't get a chance to write down any settings before I lost control of the server (and had to build a new one).  But I do have a backup of the flash drive.  Is there a way for me to read all of the data about my config (shares, etc.) from the files in the backup?

[zero_koop]

Ok, well in the absence of any more specific answers I think this video basically answers my first question:

It shows that the "format" step is a later step after clicking start and as long as it recognizes the file system it should bring it online with the array.

[trurl]

1) Assuming drives 1 and 2 have a recognized and supported filesystem, unRAID will mount them as data disks and build parity to the disk you have assigned to the parity slot. If there is any corruption on your data disks it is possible that unRAID will not mount them. If they say unmountable or unRAID wants to format either of them don't. Check back for further advice about fixing the filesystems.

 

2) Most likely your plex library, which is the database that plex stores all of the data about your meda (not the media itself) is on one of your disks and could probably be reused by a docker (recommended) or plugin.

 

3) I think the guide you linked tells you how to reuse the files from the config folder. If you'd rather start fresh and make those settings manually, the files in the config folder are mostly text and you can examine them to see what settings you had before.

 

[zero_koop]

1) Assuming drives 1 and 2 have a recognized and supported filesystem, unRAID will mount them as data disks and build parity to the disk you have assigned to the parity slot. If there is any corruption on your data disks it is possible that unRAID will not mount them. If they say unmountable or unRAID wants to format either of them don't. Check back for further advice about fixing the filesystems.

 

2) Most likely your plex library, which is the database that plex stores all of the data about your meda (not the media itself) is on one of your disks and could probably be reused by a docker (recommended) or plugin.

 

3) I think the guide you linked tells you how to reuse the files from the config folder. If you'd rather start fresh and make those settings manually, the files in the config folder are mostly text and you can examine them to see what settings you had before.

Thanks trurl, you're awesome.  I just started my array and things look good...parity is rebuilding which something I needed to do anyway.

 

That's good news about Plex, I sort of figured I should still be able to browse to those files, and it's even better if Plex might be able to use them. I'll just have to browse by disk and not by user share to find them.

 

As far as reusing old files, I know what you're referring to in the guide as far as reusing old files, but what I meant was are those files human-readable such that I could see what my settings are and then try to replicate that myself in v6?  That way I learn how to use v6, I remember what settings I have, and I don't do anything stupid to make my v6 installation unstable.

[zero_koop]

OK, an interesting thing just happened.  My old user shares are already available in v6 even though I did a complete reformat of my flash drive and a clean, new installation of v6.  How is that possible?  I'm not complaining, but this isn't what I expected.

[Squid]

OK, an interesting thing just happened.  My old user shares are already available in v6 even though I did a complete reformat of my flash drive and a clean, new installation of v6.  How is that possible?  I'm not complaining, but this isn't what I expected.

unRaid will always make a share (using default values) out of any root folder it finds in the array

[itimpi]

OK, an interesting thing just happened.  My old user shares are already available in v6 even though I did a complete reformat of my flash drive and a clean, new installation of v6.  How is that possible?  I'm not complaining, but this isn't what I expected.

In unRAID if you have User Shares enabled, then every top level folder on each disk is automatically treated as a User Share with default settings.    If the defaults are not what you want then amend them via the Shares tab.

[zero_koop]

Thanks for that info.  Everything is going smoothly so far, parity sync is complete and I just enabled dockers and installed the community applications plugin.  I have a question, why are there so many options for Plex Media Server?  Is there any difference between them?  I see there is an official Limetech one and it looks like they update it frequently for new versions of PMS, but is there any advantage to using other PMS dockers?

[trurl]

Plex Tip - Choosing a Plex Docker

[zero_koop]

Plex Tip - Choosing a Plex Docker

You're the man, thanks that was very helpful.

[zero_koop]

I've got a question about the Plex docker, but I think it is really more of a general question about how dockers work.  In my previous v5 installation I had a user share named "Apps".  That is where my Plex data is located.  I don't remember why I called it "Apps" but the new way of doing things seems to be using a share called "appdata".  It probably makes no difference, but I like to do things the normal way to make things easier on myself in the future. 

 

My first attempt to install the (linuxserver) Plex docker I pointed it to the location of the current Plex files, but I did it slightly wrong.  I pointed to to a location too far down in the folder structure and the end result was a new Plex config folder nested inside of my old Plex config folders.  So I then removed that Plex docker so I could start again, but this didn't remove the newly created config folders.  I attempted to delete these folders and I was mostly successful because it deleted all of the files, but seems to have left all of the folders.  Re-attempts to delete these folders don't give any errors yet they remain, what's going on here?

 

Then I installed the (linuxserver) Plex docker to use /mnt/user/appdata/plex as the config folder.  What I'm planning to do is then copy the files from my old Plex location to the new one.  We'll see how Plex handles this.  Hopefully it will go smoothly, but if not I can always start from scratch with Plex.  Is this a sound strategy?

 

Once I get the files moved I plan to delete the entire contents of the old "Apps" share.  Right now it only contains 2 folders: Plex and a folder named "tmp".  I have no idea what created that folder and I can't imagine anything is using it now with my new v6 installation.  Does this sound like a good idea?

[trurl]

Try it.

[zero_koop]

I wimped out on the Plex migration thing.  I decided there was only a limited amount of customization to artwork/metadata that I would be losing and it's nice to start fresh once in a while.

 

But I do have some remaining cleanup questions:

1) Can I simply delete the "Apps" user share (the manual recommends I delete the files within first, but I can't seem to do that)?  If so, will that actually delete all of the files within that share too?

2) Why won't it let me manually delete certain folders in the "Apps" user share?  I read somewhere that it might be because of hidden files.  This point is mostly moot if I can delete the user share anyway, but I am curious of the reason.

3) In the instance of Plex, for example, what kind of data is actually stored within the Docker virtual disk image?  In the instance of Plex it couldn't be much because the metadata/artwork is all stored in the appdata share.

 

Thanks for everyone's help, especially trurl.  You've made my transition fairly painless.  I'm excited to continue using v6 and will be purchasing my license before the first trial period is up.

[trurl]

unRAID won't let you delete a user share that isn't empty so that takes care of 1 and 2. Don't know any details about 3 wrt plex. Ideally whatever it is storing isn't growing. Seems to be stable for me.

 

If you don't already know about it, google Midnight Commander. That is probably the easiest way around whatever problem you are having managing these files over the network.