Cache help


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So, my current setup has two 500gb SSD running in the standard mirrored raid1. This was working just fine to start, but now it is not allowing me enough space as Plex has ate most of the cache. Of the 500gb of space I have available, almost 60% is used up even when I have no active downloads. So as soon as radarr or sonarr download a couple things, I start getting the warnings that my cache is filling. I had read that I can switch to a raid0, but have not found exactly how to do this. Plus, the article I read says it will automatically revert back to raid1 after a restart. Not sure if that has been fixed or not.

 

So now I see 2 different options.

 

1.  Switch to a raid0, and have no protection against data loss. I don't care about losing my most recent downloads, but don't really want to lose the Plex info and have to redownload all of that. Also, I don't want to lose the docker backups.

 

2. I could purchase 2 new SSD of 1tb or larger, and swap them in. 

 

What do you guys think is my best option. And if it is running raid0, is there instructions somewhere on how to do it correctly?

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12 hours ago, John_M said:

I use option 3, which is to restrict the amount of space Plex uses by telling it not to generate video preview thumbnails. Settings -> Library -> Generate video preview thumbnails : never

 

In case you want to change to RAID0: 

 

 

I do kind of like the thumbnails while fast forwarding, but I think I could probably live without them. Any idea how much room they actually use up? Also, is there a way to go through and delete the ones I currently have? Last time I looked through the folders on the cache for plex, there was no real way of telling what was where and there were tons of folders.

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If you want to get rid of them see this: https://support.plex.tv/articles/202529153-why-is-my-plex-media-server-directory-so-large/

 

If you find them useful then you'll need to provide space for them (options 1 or 2). You don't have to replace the drives in your cache pool with bigger ones - you can add more to the pool. Four in RAID 10 is a good setup. Apparently they are stored here:

 

Quote

They're stored as .bif files in folders in Application Support/Plex Media Server/Media, which also contains thumbnails/posters/etc. So completely separate from your actual media files.

 

I don't have any so I don't know exactly how much space they occupy but on the Settings -> Library page there's a warning of the impact they can have on your server.

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