Hi there people,

this might be a n00b question but I have used plex for a number of years running on a centos machine I decided to move to unRaid.

The unRaid system is great first up and well done, dockers and VMs work well, with some questions I have on the plex app.

The system currently has 6Tb of media files on 4 2Tb WD reds via a perc 5e card, the machine is a dual quad core 1.6 GHz zeon Dell 1950 server with 32gb of ecc ram, the onboard perc 5i raid was going to be the cache drive, just to let people know what the machine is.

The problem is not what I can see with the unRaid side but the plex implementation, I have found it to be slow and to the point fails on other devices to connect, locally is hit and miss and forget remote, sometimes works. On the previous system everything worked but never tried the remote function, yes I have a plex premium account.

One thing I have noticed is with plex that if I restart the machine that the app runs on the server, BUT the local machines for playback fail to connect, a quick look into the web GUI and every time it is asking me to select the media directories every time even saving it, then go back into it the setting are there, the shutdown and reboot does something?

When it looks like its on-line its sort of there, meaning when the PS3 finally connects on cat5  it does not show the complete scan, the machine is redoing the scanning and metadata job again, even though its been done ten or 20 times with in the trial period.

Sorry about the length of this question but I had to explain what is going on, all the other apps work correctly, and never had it on the old server, I have 5 days before I need to buy the full large license for unRaid, I am hoping this is not a problem with unRaid but something I can fix with a quick cli bashing.

The unRaid system is a great system and only a little bit of rethinking makes it sort of easy.

One other question, if I make a cache system, and I want a share to only run on it just how do you do it, anybody got a link?, the thinking is for the plex data to live on a quick drive SSD for all the settings and metadata to help with the running and the trans-code directory.

 

Anyway cheers for now

Paul

More infos needed - Cache-Drive available (for Dockers and Plex-Databse)? Plex-Docker properly installed? All paths set correctly?

Plex is running now in a Docker-Environment, so if this is new for you, just read the Docs how to setup docker.

And for the SSD: Choose a Model with a high TBW because the SSD will write a high amount of Data - in my case 22TB/year.

Edited October 30, 20178 yr by Zonediver

Thanks for the reply Zonediver,

you are right, people must read the fine manuals before the starting of the installs, I would call myself a n00b on unRaid, but not linux, personally the old plex install worked perfectly up till the raid started to fall apart and the reason why the new build and the frantic copying of the media and other personal files to the new device, in fact the first set of drives are full and more is needed.

I did read the how tos, and even found a great YouTube vid, easy, simples, the first time I set it running I just copied about 500Gb of various music and vids just to see how it ran on a single drive, after the copy and the setup and the directory paths made for the 'sym-linking' process worked well.

The metadata with a small amount of data did not take very long and in a couple of hours was watching stuff on the PS3 via Plex , perfect, the speed was great.

 

Now the media is about 6Tb and there is another 4 + to add in the system just seams slow, and after every single reboot, I have to open up the webGUI and the very first thing I see is please pick the media and directory, say what everytime, and I do save it.

You cant test anything during the metadata update it does everytime, I cant be the only person with this fault.

 

As for the cache drive system I would like to know if you can setup a share that will only exist on the cache system this would be made from 4 SSDs this would be the perfect place of data that needs to be quick, just personally I can not see a way to do it.

 

Basically the machine is a Dell 1950 with two raid cards, one is internal and the other is external, the later has different firmware allowing the IT drive selection to work perfect this has the first of 4x 2Tb WD reds giving a raid of 6Tb now it is very full and not much room free, starting to think this is the underlining problem.

But the only way would be to delete a mountain of stuff to just try it. Personally the redoing of the linking for the media on each reboot is wearing thin, I have only a couple more days on the trial before I have to buy.

 

Also I must say it was working perfectly until I shoved the new raid pack and three days of recovering data and moving, it was at this point Plex become non responsive and buggy.

 

I might need to ask plex and see what they think, first up was unRaid as I know the community is great and very helpful, plus I will need to buy the key with-in two or so days.

 

And again thanks for the reply

Paul

Edited October 30, 20178 yr by cerial_killer
not finished

The Cache-Drive is primerely not designed for Array-Data.

Purpose of Cache:

Dockers, VMs, transcoded plex-stuff, plex-database and - important - when you move data do the arry, it goes to the cache-drive  first (for faster transfer) and then the mover moves it over to the array.

If you need additional things "outside" the array, you can use unasigned devices.

It seems, there is something wrong with your plex (and database).

And the next question is: Are the Dell-Controllers (what type is it?) are compatible with unRAID???

Remember: unraid is "not" a RAID-system, its JBOD with Parity - so the controllers should work as HBAs - in my case, i deactivated the BIOS on my both Adaptec's so they work as normal SATA-Controllers.

First of all, i would check, if your hardware is compatible and then go ahead with unraid itself.

If you expext a "fast as possible"  RAID-System, unraid is the wrong sys for you.

Edited October 30, 20178 yr by Zonediver