Moving media without redownloading metadata

[mechguy 11]

I currently have my Emby media stored across multiple drives. When initially setting up Emby I read here on the forums that is preferable to have direct file paths set and then use the path substitution feature, I think it was to allow for direct playback.

 

All is working well this way but now I need to replace the hard drives, I would like to do this with fewer, larger capacity drives which means some of the media cannot be in the same location as it was before. Is there any way to change the file paths of certain media folders but retain all of the downloaded meta data for those files.

 

For example on Plex this was achieved by adding the new file paths while keeping the old ones, forcing a re-scan whereby it would match the old metadata to the new file locations, then removing the old, now obsolete, file paths.

 

I believe if I had my metadata stored as NFO files in the media folders this would be possible? However I do not do this as I prefer to keep my metadata on the solid state boot drive for better performance as the media drives are not constantly spinning (the server auto sleeps).

 

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance.

[Luke 30019]

HI, welcome. as you've suggested, it's possible with metadata in media folders, but not currently otherwise. 

[mechguy 11]

HI, welcome. as you've suggested, it's possible with metadata in media folders, but not currently otherwise. 

Would you suggest I change to storing metadata as NFO files in the media folders given my setup. Will it affect performance in any way?

[Luke 30019]

if the drives are always on there will be no performance impact. if the drives sleep when idle, then there could be some impact because they'll need to wake up on the fly in order to deliver images through the emby api. There is a recently opened feature request asking for a local cache of all images to rectify that:

 

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/34904-fr-add-image-cache-to-local-drive/

[mechguy 11]

Could the NFO files be used in conjunction with the 'custom metadata path' function that is then stored on the SSD?