Migrating Plex Media Server to new JBOD Volume in PR4100

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud Pro Series
1

I have 3 volumes (JBOD format) in my Western Digital PR4100 Server. Volume 1 is setup to run the Plex Server but I want to have the Plex Server run from Volume 2 so that I can remove the Volume 1 drive and replace it. I have already removed all my media data files from volume 1 and redirected the Plex media server to use the media data in Volume 2. This works fine and I have access to all my media as long as Volume 1 is in the PR4100 nas
.
What I can’t do is to have the Plex Media Server run from volume 2 after removing the volume 1 from the PR4100 even though I have reinstalling the Plex Media Server app on to Volume 2. The Media server is no longer available and it continues to search for a media server location without success.

What should be my procedure to achieve this task?

2

Western Digital support level 3 replied as follows

That is the designed behavior of the device. Also the device will recreate and possibly replicate the default shares Public, SmartWare, and Timemachine when volume one is removed. It is recommended to leave Volume one in the device when configured with JBOD.

Unfortunately, it is not recommended to change the Linux settings of the enclosure, it could void the warranty of the device.

Possible solution needing further support are

  1. Reset PR4100 to defaults.

  • Would this remove any 3rd party apps from volume 1 such as the Plex Media Server so that volume 1 can be removed and apps installed on volume 2?

  • Would data on volume 2 still be accessable.

  1. Reformat all drives to restart from scratch.

  • Can this be done so that the original volume 1 can be removed and a different drive be setup as volume 1 with the Plex Media Server?

  • What would be the procedure without effecting warrantee?

3

I can help you to switch the drives, but as I don’t use JBOD myself, I need a bit of extra info.
Enable SSH and provide me some info on the disk with the following commands:

df -h
cat /proc/mdstat
ls -l /shares/Volume*

Procedure
The apps are installed here: /shares/Volume_1/Nas_Prog
If you want to use disk 2 (/dev/sdb) as main disk, do the following steps.

cp -r /shares/Volume_1/Nas_Prog /shares/Volume_2/Nas_Prog

Copy the database, but remove the mysql pid and err file.

cp -r /mnt/HD_a4/.@database@ /mnt/HD_b4/.@database@
rm /mnt/HD_b4/.@database@/MyCloudPR4100*

Shutdown the NAS, remove power cord
Remove drive 1 and 2 (I suggest to mark them with stickers). Keep 3 and 4.
Insert drive 2 in slot 1 and boot the NAS.
All your apps should be up and running, feel free to add a new disk in slot 2.

I think this should work, however I didn’t test it myself.
If you have any issues, feel free to send a PM.

4

Your suggestion may work but it would void my warrantee so I have decided to do a full restore. So far, it’s taken 12 hours and is 80 % completed.