Does Plex need to copy source>dest?

[di0de]

I installed plex over the weekend (using this guide: View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WF0r36cxO0) and during installation I pointed to the source (a folder on a share) and the destination (/media in plex jail). Stupidly it didn't occur to me that this was going to copy my entire media folder to the plex folder. Essentially I have cloned my media directory inside plex.

My question is this: can't I just have plex use my existing shares? I don't see the point in keeping two exact copies of everything on the same drive. Now if I was using it for backup, ok, but I'm not right now.

If the answer to the above question is "no" then my follow up question is this: will plex monitor my source and update the destination by copying new files as they are added?

My system running freenas is old and very finicky. That's why I'm afraid to do a lot of up front testing on this because I'm afraid the whole thing could come crashing down... but that's a different issue.

EDIT: took out bulky youtube embed

 

[di0de]

Can someone please explain how the source > destination works when installing plex as a plugin with freenas? The reason I'm bumping this thread is because I had a major bone-headed move over the weekend and I would like to know more about what I'm doing before I move forward.

It appeared to me that when selecting my source and destination, all of the media in "source" had been copied to "destination" I felt like this was kinda stupid because they existed on the same drive and I didn't see the point of backing up files on the same drive. Plex server got installed fine and I used it plenty of times.

Recently I decided I needed to free up some space, so I deleted all of the 'duplicate' files from inside "destination." I then deleted the movies and TV libraries from the plex UI. I'm sure you can figure out what happened next...

All of the files that I had deleted from 'destination' were suddenly gone from 'source' as well. So I'm left with a few questions.

1. Would it be wise to point my 'destination' folder to a seperate drive? --and thus have this act as my primary backup for my data?
2. Does plex indeed copy the entire source data to its destination folder?
3. Can't I just use my existing media directory for plex?

Thanks.

 

[dlavigne]

Have you created a storage? If so,http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Adding_Jails#Adding_Storage has the following reminder:

DANGER! it is important to realize that an added storage is really just a pointer to the selected storage directory on the FreeNAS® system. It does not create a copy of that data within the jail. This means that if you delete any files from the "Destination" directory located in the jail, you are really deleting those files from the "Source" directory located on the FreeNAS® system. However, if you delete the storage, you are only deleting the pointer, not the data itself.

 

[di0de]

Ah! That is extremely helpful thank you, this is what happened. Fortunately I didn't lose anything drastically important, and I gained a valuable lesson!

 

[diedrichg]

I installed plex over the weekend (using this guide: View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WF0r36cxO0) and during installation I pointed to the source (a folder on a share) and the destination (/media in plex jail). Stupidly it didn't occur to me that this was going to copy my entire media folder to the plex folder. Essentially I have cloned my media directory inside plex.

My question is this: can't I just have plex use my existing shares? I don't see the point in keeping two exact copies of everything on the same drive. Now if I was using it for backup, ok, but I'm not right now.

I know it looks like your media was copied to the plex jail but it was not. What you are seeing are in fact symbolic links to your data. This was how it was explained to me as I too thought they looked like actual copies.

 

[di0de]

I had kind of suspected this from the beginning but I never looked into it. Didn't have a backup or even export to recycle bin set up. It could have been worse though, and now I know to be extra careful.