Hard disk swap, can Emby not remove items?

[GeniusJack 1]

Good morning everyone,

I'm trying to use an hard disk and replacing it with another; is there any way to not remove offline items for one Library in Emby?

For example

Library named : A (using D:\Music)

Library named : B (using D:\Movies)

I remove an hard drive and replace it with another one and the folders are still the same: D:\Music and D:\Movies

I would like that Library A can remove the missing files, but Library B would not remove but just add the new one

 

Is that possible?

Thanks a lot

 

[ebr 16169]

Shut down the server while doing the swap to be absolutely safe. 

I also highly recommend looking into disk pooling software which will make this a non-issue.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

2 hours ago, ebr said:

Shut down the server while doing the swap to be absolutely safe. 

I also highly recommend looking into disk pooling software which will make this a non-issue.

I agree. I use DrivePool and I rarely lose anything even though I have, several times, lost or replaced drives over the years. I do not like having to be aware at all times of where files are stored and I do not like having to use backups as I find the backup systems slow and unreliable. DrivePool uses redundancy and that is not as good as a backup, as if a file is actually deleted it is gone, but it does mean that if a drive is lost no files in the duplicate sections are ever truly lost in the event of a total drive failure. 

But I am not sure if a small number of drives is handled well in DrivePool (I have 13 drives in my pool) however i see no reason that 2 or three drives would not work well. I started using DrivePool when my library grew to needing 4 drives and as my library grew I just added drives. I started with 4tb drives but now, when I replace a drive, I us at least 8tb and usually 10tb and I am considering adding storage by removing a 4tb drive and replacing it with one of the newer 10+tb drives. I have even seen drives at a reasonable price that are 20+tb in size. 
DrivePool handles everything so it looks to Emby like I have a single 82+tb drive. 
All my drives, save one, are external USB drives so swapping them is about as simple as it gets.
DrivePool also has the advantage of all files and the duplicates are stored in native format so, in the unlikely event of DrivePool failing completely the files are all still accessible.
Because of the way DrivePool handles drives you can have drives of any size in the pool and they can be of different sizes. Also you can add existing drives to the pool without reformatting or erasing the drives and it is a simple process to get the old data on a drive into the pool. 

This got longer than I intended so I will stop here but, as you can probably tell, I really like DrivePool and I think it is the best pooling software for PCs there is. 

[Clackdor 109]

I'm also a huge advocate for using stablebit drivepool if you're on windows. It makes expanding storage or adding removing disks a lot simpler. 

You can also get really granular with balancing plugins, file placement rules, heirachial pools, duplication, etc. to control what data goes to what drives (or group of drives)

[GeniusJack 1]

Hello everyone and thanks a lot for your answers

As suggested I installed StableBit Drive pool and added my two drives for the pool

Moved the files from the First hard drive to the pool, when I disconnect It and attach the second drive, the files are missing in the pool and Emby remove them, am I missing an option to flag?

Thanks a lot again

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

1 hour ago, GeniusJack said:

Hello everyone and thanks a lot for your answers

As suggested I installed StableBit Drive pool and added my two drives for the pool

Moved the files from the First hard drive to the pool, when I disconnect It and attach the second drive, the files are missing in the pool and Emby remove them, am I missing an option to flag?

Thanks a lot again

The answer is simple. Do not remove the first drive.

Be sure Emby's library points to the drive letter that DrivePool creates not to either of the actual drives. You should not, normally, use anything but DrivePool's drive letter to store and access files. For DrivePool to function correctly all the pooled drives must remain connected.

[GeniusJack 1]

I can't keep both drive connected at the same time, that's why I Need Emby (or StableBit) to not remove the offline contents :(

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

13 minutes ago, GeniusJack said:

I can't keep both drive connected at the same time, that's why I Need Emby (or StableBit) to not remove the offline contents

I don't understand why not. If they are USB drives and you do not have enough ports then get a USB hub (Preferably powered) and go from there. My least capable computer only has three USB ports but I have 8 drives connected and a UBS mouse and a USB keyboard and a couple of other USB devices. Hubs solve a lot of problems. If the drive where content is is not connected then Emby cannot play the content anyway. 

Edited August 21, 2025 by Gilgamesh_48

[Chiefmas 40]

52 minutes ago, GeniusJack said:

I can't keep both drive connected at the same time

Why not? Out of ports or something?

But yeah, this is something Emby doesn't support. It's one of the few things I sorta missed from Plex- because library cleanup is always automatic in Emby, that can be somewhat annoying. It makes removable storage, or anything that is even mildly easy to have disconnect(network mount points, if the network server/network goes down) have a risk that you may have to re-add portions of your library. It's also something of a problem with DrivePool, if only some of your disks don't come up for some reason. Plex was actually handy in this regard, because it'd indirectly tell you something was wrong because you'd see media marked as missing. Emby, it just removes it, and unless it's something you will notice has disappeared, you may not realize right away anything is wrong (if you don't have monitoring setup and pay attention to it).

I specifically have checks in place on my setup for Emby not to start on reboot unless the storage is visible first. I think this is especially important if you are network mounting storage, otherwise your whole library may get deleted before you realize anything is amiss and can rectify the situation first.

 

[GeniusJack 1]

Unlucky is not a hub problem, is that I need to replace the hard drive, that's why I'm asking for this kind of solution and not for a solution to have all the drives connected

So I guess StableBit won't save the full list of files in anyway and keep them

Is there any way to get a Kodi Library into an Emby Library? Kodi doesn't remove the items so I would like to set up Kodi and when add the contents get the sync of the files from Kodi to Emby, is that possible?

Thanks a lot

[Luke 42077]

1 minute ago, GeniusJack said:

Unlucky is not a hub problem, is that I need to replace the hard drive, that's why I'm asking for this kind of solution and not for a solution to have all the drives connected

So I guess StableBit won't save the full list of files in anyway and keep them

Is there any way to get a Kodi Library into an Emby Library? Kodi doesn't remove the items so I would like to set up Kodi and when add the contents get the sync of the files from Kodi to Emby, is that possible?

Thanks a lot

Hi, your have to just point Emby to the same folders.

[GeniusJack 1]

Kodi and Emby points to the same folders

If I swap the drive, Kodi add the files (and if I press play on a file not available Kodi will just pop up that the file is not available) ; Emby will remove the missing files and add the new ones

[Luke 42077]

HI there, can you please provide a specific example?

How to Report a Problem

Thanks !

 

[GeniusJack 1]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

HI there, can you please provide a specific example?

How to Report a Problem

Thanks !

 

 

For example

Library named : A (using D:\Music)

Library named : B (using D:\Movies)

I remove an hard drive and replace it with another one and the folders are still the same: D:\Music and D:\Movies

I would like that Library A can remove the missing files, but Library B would not remove but just add the new one

[Luke 42077]

On 8/22/2025 at 4:46 AM, GeniusJack said:

 

For example

Library named : A (using D:\Music)

Library named : B (using D:\Movies)

I remove an hard drive and replace it with another one and the folders are still the same: D:\Music and D:\Movies

I would like that Library A can remove the missing files, but Library B would not remove but just add the new one

Hi there, please attach the Emby server log from when the problem occurred:

How to Report a Problem

Thanks!

 

[GeniusJack 1]

Hi Luke,

Sorry but I don't get when should I get the log; after I attached the second drive and after the scan? = When the files (that were in the first drive) are removed from Emby?

Thanks a lot

[Luke 42077]

Quote

When the files (that were in the first drive) are removed from Emby?

Hi, yes that would be the best time. Thanks.

[GeniusJack 1]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, yes that would be the best time. Thanks.

Attached! I tried to read it and I suppose my issue is recursive=true but I didn't find a way to put it as false

You can find the item is removed from library in line 323 (after drives change the item is not in the second drive, was in the first)

Thanks a lot

embyserver.txt

[Luke 42077]

On 8/27/2025 at 6:06 PM, GeniusJack said:

Attached! I tried to read it and I suppose my issue is recursive=true but I didn't find a way to put it as false

You can find the item is removed from library in line 323 (after drives change the item is not in the second drive, was in the first)

Thanks a lot

embyserver.txt 43.11 kB · 0 downloads

OK so what exactly did you do during the time of this log?

Can you please explain this:

Quote

When the files (that were in the first drive) are removed from Emby?

Thanks.

[GeniusJack 1]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

OK so what exactly did you do during the time of this log?

Can you please explain this:

Thanks.

Sure

I got the logs doing:

-Shutdown the server

-Attach drive1 E:\Test4Luke

-Scan Library "Test4Luke"

-Detach drive1 and attach drive2 (same folder E:\Test4Luke, but different medias)

-Scan again the Library

 

Media that were in Drive1 (not in Drive2) are removed from Library; media that are in Drive2 are correctly added

I would like that media that were in drive1 (but not present in drive2 - attached at the moment of the scan) will not be removed

[Luke 42077]

OK currently there is no way to avoid that. A dedicated option to ignore deleted files would be required.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

OK currently there is no way to avoid that. A dedicated option to ignore deleted files would be required.

And that is an option I, for one, hope you never implement. I see nothing good coming form it and a lot of bad as Emby should never have a non-existent file that it could try to access. 

[GeniusJack 1]

5 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

And that is an option I, for one, hope you never implement. I see nothing good coming form it and a lot of bad as Emby should never have a non-existent file that it could try to access. 

I don't get why if you don't need the feature they should never implement, but never mind

 

7 hours ago, Luke said:

OK currently there is no way to avoid that. A dedicated option to ignore deleted files would be required.

And is it possible to add it? For example a flag when you add the Library that allow that option? Maybe in "advanced option" if you think it's a "risky feature"

I was thinking as alternative to it: is it possible to import a Library from Kodi?

Kodi doesn't delete media not present ad the moment so I could scan into Kodi and then import the Library into Emby

I found the connector for Emby to Kodi, but not the reverse

 

Thanks a lot

[TeamB 2438]

On 8/22/2025 at 9:25 AM, GeniusJack said:

I can't keep both drive connected at the same time, that's why I Need Emby (or StableBit) to not remove the offline contents

if you can not keep the both drives connected at the same time how are you copying the data from the old drive to the new one?

You need to copy the data from the old drive to the new one no matter what approach you use, once you have the data on your new drive in the same structure as the old one (same paths/drive letters etc) then you should be able to start up emby again and it should never have known the file were missing.

Am I missing something here???

[GeniusJack 1]

Just now, TeamB said:

if you can not keep the both drives connected at the same time how are you copying the data from the old drive to the new one?

You need to copy the data from the old drive to the new one no matter what approach you use, once you have the data on your new drive in the same structure as the old one (same paths/drive letters etc) then you should be able to start up emby again and it should never have known the file were missing.

Am I missing something here???

It's not an old drive and a new one

They are two drives, same structure, different files