Software & Apps

Best practices for organizing a 10TB+ digital media server with Plex

by RebootTips

Setting up a Plex server with a massive media library, say 10TB or more, isn’t just about dumping files onto a drive and calling it a day. I learned that the hard way, like many others. My initial setup involved a sprawling collection across several drives, a haphazard mix of naming conventions, and Plex constantly struggling to identify content. Scanning would take forever, metadata was often wrong, and I spent more time correcting matches than actually watching anything. It became clear that without a solid foundation, a large library quickly devolves into an unmanageable mess.

The obvious approach—just having a folder for movies and one for TV shows—falls short because Plex, while smart, relies heavily on consistent structure and naming. When you hit 10TB+, you’re talking about thousands of files. Manual intervention for every misidentified item isn’t sustainable. My method, refined over several years and a few server rebuilds, focuses on creating an organization system that Plex understands intrinsically, minimizing the need for manual fixes, speeding up library scans, and making future expansion straightforward. It’s about building a predictable environment that works with Plex, not against it.

How to Organize Your Media

Here’s how I set up my own servers to handle large media collections effectively:

1. Establish a Root Media Folder

I always start with a single, overarching root folder for all my media. On my Linux-based server, I call it /mnt/media. This is where everything lives, simplifying permissions and sharing.

  • /mnt/media/Movies/
  • /mnt/media/TV Shows/
  • /mnt/media/Music/ (if you use Plex for music)
  • /mnt/media/Other Videos/ (for home videos, documentaries not fitting standard categories, etc.)

2. Standardize Your Directory Structure

This is where the real magic happens. Plex thrives on predictable paths.

  1. Movies: Each movie gets its own subfolder. This is crucial for extras (trailers, deleted scenes) and ensures a clean lookup.
    • /mnt/media/Movies/Movie Title (Year)/Movie Title (Year).ext
    • Example: /mnt/media/Movies/Inception (2010)/Inception (2010).mkv
    • If you have 4K versions, I often create a separate Movies 4K library and folder, like /mnt/media/Movies 4K/, to keep them distinct.
  2. TV Shows: This structure is even more critical and Plex is very particular about it.
    • /mnt/media/TV Shows/Show Title/Season XX/Show Title - SXXEXX - Episode Title.ext
    • Example: /mnt/media/TV Shows/The Expanse/Season 01/The Expanse - S01E01 - Dulcinea.mkv
    • For specials, use a Specials folder (or Season 00), with the appropriate episode numbers. Example: /mnt/media/TV Shows/The Expanse/Specials/The Expanse - S00E01 - A Telltale Heart.mkv

3. Implement Strict Naming Conventions

This goes hand-in-hand with the directory structure. Use a consistent naming scheme that Plex’s scanners understand without ambiguity.

  • Movies: Movie Title (Year).ext
  • TV Shows: Show Title - SXXEXX - Episode Title.ext
  • Remove extraneous data: Get rid of release group tags (e.g., .x264-FOOBAR), codec information, or other clutter from the filename. These confuse Plex. Tools like Filebot are fantastic for automating this, but manual clean-up works too.
  • Year is vital: Always include the year for movies and often for TV shows if there are reboots with the same title.

4. Set Up Plex Libraries Correctly

With your directory structure in place, point Plex to the correct locations.

  1. Create a new library in Plex (e.g., “Movies”).
  2. Choose the library type (“Movies”).
  3. Add the folder: /mnt/media/Movies.
  4. Repeat for “TV Shows”, pointing to /mnt/media/TV Shows.
  5. For agents and scanners, I generally stick to the default “Plex Movie” and “Plex TV Series” agents. They’ve gotten very good over the years.

5. Permissions are Paramount

It’s an old chestnut, but Plex can’t see what it doesn’t have permission to read. Ensure the user Plex runs as has read and execute permissions on all your media directories and read permissions on the media files themselves. On my Linux server, I typically ensure the Plex user (often named plex) is part of a group that owns the media, or I set permissions broadly, like `chmod -R u+rwX,go+rX /mnt/media` for directories and `chmod -R u+rw,go+r /mnt/media/*.ext` for files.

Things people often get wrong

I’ve seen (and made) plenty of mistakes here over the years. Here are the common pitfalls:

  • Inconsistent Naming: This is by far the biggest source of grief. Plex is surprisingly rigid about the SXXEXX format for TV shows. My genuine mistake when I first started scaling up was with a TV show that had a special prequel episode. I named it Show Title - S01E00 - Prequel.mkv and then the first actual episode Show Title - S01E01 - Episode One.mkv. Plex stubbornly matched the “E00” special as the *first* episode of season one, throwing everything else off by one. It took me a long time to realize Plex prefers specials in a Specials or Season 00 folder, not within a numbered season, and certainly not as E00. Fixing it meant moving that special to Show Title/Specials/Show Title - S00E01 - Prequel.mkv, rescanning, and then fixing the rest of the season. It was a tedious manual correction for about 20 episodes.
  • Embedding Metadata: While some tools embed metadata into MP4s or MKVs, I’ve found it often causes more problems than it solves with Plex’s default agents. Let Plex fetch its own metadata. It’s usually better and more consistent.
  • Nested Movie Folders (incorrectly): Sometimes people put multiple movie files directly in the `Movies` folder, or create extra, unnecessary subfolders within a movie’s directory. Stick to `Movie Title (Year)/Movie Title (Year).ext` to avoid confusion for Plex and to keep a clean structure for any extras.
  • Mixing Content Types: Don’t put a movie file directly into your TV Shows folder, or vice versa. Keep the libraries distinct, pointed to their correct root folders. Plex will try to guess, often badly, leading to misidentification.
  • External Subtitles/NFOs: These are fine, but ensure they are named exactly as Plex expects (e.g., `Movie Title (Year).eng.srt` alongside the movie file). If you’re not using specific agents that parse NFO files, Plex often ignores them, or worse, gets confused if they contain conflicting information.

A consistent structure and naming are the bedrock of a stable, performant Plex server, saving you countless headaches in the long run.

Related Posts