plex media server ubuntu 18.04 remote drive

Setting Up Plex Media Server with Ubuntu 18.04 and Remote Drive

As a long-time user of Plex server, I've encountered my fair share of challenges when it comes to setting up the media server on my Ubuntu 18.04 system. One of the biggest hurdles I faced was exposing my movie collection directly to Plex, which is why I initially took the approach of curating a set of movies on a remote drive.

To achieve this, I created a directory called `/data3/` and stored my movies there. However, I soon realized that deleting movies in Plex also deletes the original file, which was not ideal for me. If I were to do this again, I would definitely consider using a snap package to load Plex, as it would save me from having to go through the process of updating and maintaining the server manually.

Ray, a fellow user, suggested using snaps to load Plex, and I must say that it's a great idea. Unfortunately, my first attempt at using snaps was unsuccessful, and I had to reload my Clonezilla image from before the try to get 18.04.2 to restart. I'm currently running 18.04.3, but I plan on doing a fresh reinstall to abandon all my previous failed Plex attempts and start anew.

When setting up Plex, I encountered another issue where it reported 'There are no items in this folder' even though I had specified the correct paths `/media/ray/Biggy4` (movies) and `/media/ray/Biggy2` (TV Shows). According to a Plex help file, Plex cannot see files on Linux by default and requires a procedure to make it visible. Despite reporting the disks, Plex does not recognize any content.

My main problem is trying to use external drives with Plex. I've tried various methods, but none of them have been successful so far. If anyone has any advice or help on how to get Plex to recognize my external drives, I would greatly appreciate it.

Plex media server ubuntu 18.04 remote drive