Hi. I’m new to this forum and have been unable to find the answer to my issue elsewhere.
I set up my homebuilt TrueNAS Core self build around three years ago and have a Plex Jail for DVD, CD music and Photos. All is working fine. The system is using 5x 4TB Western Digital NAS disks so usable disk space is around 10TB. My Plex library takes up around 1.5TB currently.
I want to use NextCloud as an alternative to Dropbox - which is full and also to use my own photo backup instead of Google as my Google account is 97% full.
It seems NextCloud can no longer be installed as a Jail in Core so I would like to upgrade from Core to Scale. However, I am concerned about losing access to my Plex library.
How do I go about the upgrade whilst safeguarding my existing Plex library?
My script no longer works with CORE 13.0, but I expect it to work with CORE 13.3–that’s in beta right now, but is expected to be released next week.
The upgrade won’t touch your library data files, presuming they’re stored outside of the jail as they should be. You’d need to install a new instance of Plex to handle them, though, as your jail will be lost in the upgrade.
The problem is in installing that new instance of Plex. It’s pretty widely reported that the Plex app provided by iXSystems doesn’t work[1]–and since they’re in the midst of migrating all their apps to Compose for SCALE 24.10, it seems unlikely to me that they’ll invest any effort in fixing it before 24.10 is released. Alternatives to the app would include installing Plex as a custom app, or setting up a sandbox and running Plex inside it. But both of those are going to take a bit more work than clicking a button to install Plex.
I have a CORE system and am trying to figure out when to migrate to SCALE. I am remote for 6 months of the year, so would need to coordinate the migration during a period of the year when I am home.
I know that there is nothing forcing me to migrate, and the right answer at this time is to likely wait, but I figured I would ask the question.
I am using my system for data backup, and running mostly media related apps (Plex w/ PlexPass lifetime, Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Sabnzbd+, Transmission, LMS), as well as a Unifi controller.
I need to migrate my system to the new forums, but basically an old X9 system in a SMI 2U (12 bay) chassis w/ 32gb ECC ram and 6x14TB (w/ a hot spare), 2x500gb NVMw in a SMI PCIe to NVMe board, and a 32gb SATADOM for boot w/ a cheap USB thumb drive as a backup (yeah yeah, I know, but I don’t have the SSD bays in the back of this case and I don’t want to consume any of the front drive bays for boot).
I am aware that after I “migrate” I will need to start over on my apps. I currently have the config for most of them in a separate dataset (named “config”), which I think will help. I also have a lot of static mappings in my router (pfSense) that I suspect I will need to update after migrating.
So, based on this, is now the time to migrate? Or is there a particular catalyst I should be looking for?
I don’t think so. If you’d asked me in April or earlier this year, I’d probably have said so, but iX’ announcement of blowing up the apps system and starting over with Compose in the next major release of SCALE means that pretty much everything involving apps is up in the air. If your system runs well now, I’d suggest waiting until (at least) a couple of releases into 24.10 before making the change.
Hi Dan. Thx for the prompt response.
Think I’m using the latest core version but would need to check. It’s certainly 13.x but not sure which version.
When you say ‘your script’ are you the author?
Also do you know the timescale for when Plex is likely to be available and working on scale as I want the migration to run as smoothly as possible.
Yes, my installation is in a separate SSD to the data HDDs.
Best wishes.
No idea, really. I’ve been using TrueCharts apps since I migrated to SCALE, and while they’ve had their quirks, they’ve worked well for me. But with iX’ throwing Kubernetes out the window and moving to Compose instead, TrueCharts’ apps won’t work directly with SCALE any more. They’re working on a migration solution that will move them into a VM running TalOS, and I’m planning to see how that works before I make any significant changes. If their migration works well, I’ll use it; if not, I’ll probably move my apps to LXC containers on Proxmox or something similar. I don’t in any event expect to use iX’ apps, at least in the near term–I just don’t have any confidence that they’ll put any more sustained effort into maintaining them than they did into maintaining the current K3s-based apps, or the iocage-based plugins before them, or the PBI-based plugins before those[1].
But that digression aside, the “secret sauce” to making iX’ Plex app work seems to be in this post by @LarsR:
Generate a claim token at the link there, paste it into the app config, and run the app. That should allow the app to connect to your account and work.
iX, don’t get mad at me for saying this, just prove me wrong–I’d welcome it. But it’ll take a while. ↩︎
