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Metadata best practice and bulletproof Backup solution


plittlefield

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plittlefield

Hello Folks,

I've been using Emby on my Linux server for about a month (after jumping ship from Plex) and all is well - it's a keeper!

I have a subscription to Emby Premiere monthly and already seeing the benefits.

I now wish to have a bulletproof quick and efficient Backup solution for this server.

I have read that the metadata only gets backed up if you choose to "save your metadata to local media folders" - so I could do with some guidance on that to be sure of what it might break.

I see from the Dashboard that the paths are as follows...

 

Paths
Cache:
/var/lib/emby/cache
Logs:
/var/lib/emby/logs
Metadata:
/var/lib/emby/metadata
Transcoding temporary files:
/var/lib/emby/transcoding-temp

 

...so surely just backing up the whole 4GB of /var/lib/emby would cover it?

I have plenty of disk storage, some cloud servers and USB drives.

I look forward to your replies.

Many thanks,

🙂

Paully

Edited by plittlefield
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BAlGaInTl
3 hours ago, plittlefield said:

Hello Folks,

I've been using Emby on my Linux server for about a month (after jumping ship from Plex) and all is well - it's a keeper!

I have a subscription to Emby Premiere monthly and already seeing the benefits.

I now wish to have a bulletproof quick and efficient Backup solution for this server.

I have read that the metadata only gets backed up if you choose to "save your metadata to local media folders" - so I could do with some guidance on that to be sure of what it might break.

I see from the Dashboard that the paths are as follows...

 

Paths
Cache:
/var/lib/emby/cache
Logs:
/var/lib/emby/logs
Metadata:
/var/lib/emby/metadata
Transcoding temporary files:
/var/lib/emby/transcoding-temp

 

...so surely just backing up the whole 4GB of /var/lib/emby would cover it?

I have plenty of disk storage, some cloud servers and USB drives.

I look forward to your replies.

Many thanks,

🙂

Paully

I'm a linux (Unraid) user as well.

I've found the best solution for backup is to run it in Docker with my metadata stored with the media files.

So as far as Emby in the container is concerned, the paths are always the same, but I can make the actual paths anything I want.  I have a separate SSD that contains all my app data from various containers, and that is backed up regularly.  Restoring (and I've done it before) is as simple as copying the files to where you want them and then pointing a new Emby container at those files.

Some other things such as hardware encoding/decoding is more difficult to set up, but since I don't rely on that, it's the perfect solution for me.

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plittlefield
25 minutes ago, BAlGaInTl said:

with my metadata stored with the media files.

Is there a setting for that?

If I already have my metadata not stored with the media files, is there a script or plugin to convert what I have?

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BAlGaInTl
21 minutes ago, plittlefield said:

Is there a setting for that?

If I already have my metadata not stored with the media files, is there a script or plugin to convert what I have?

There is a library setting to save the images with the files.  It does make for easier backup.

I don't know what effect turning it on for an established library has.

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plittlefield
6 hours ago, BAlGaInTl said:

There is a library setting to save the images with the files.  It does make for easier backup.

I don't know what effect turning it on for an established library has.

Ok, what I might do is create a new Library and add some small amount of content then change it to the folder method.

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  • 1 month later...
plittlefield

Hi Folks,

Time to revisit this - going back to the whole /var/lib/emby folder - can I just back that up with my Library files?

If my server crashes, all I have to do is install Emby, copy back the /var/lib/emby folder and my Library files and reboot.

Will that work?

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Q-Droid

For crash recovery that should work. The caveat is not knowing if the DB is in a consistent state at the time of backup. I don't know enough about SQLite to say how well it can handle incomplete transactions (crash/live copy) so if you have the option of doing a cold backup (stop Emby -> backup /var/lib/emby -> start Emby) that would be your safest bet. Libraries are mostly static and could be done before or after the Emby files.

 

 

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plittlefield

That sounds like a plan to me!

I DO also have the Backup plugin which appears to be working every day, so I can add that to the Cloud backup and sleep at night 🙂

Thanks everyone.

Paully

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