Changing the location of music files...any hints?

Assuming I’ve had Roon scan my library located on PC/Server A and I subsequently decide to move the drives containing my music to another PC/Server B thus necessitating a change in network path, are there any ways to avoid Roon having to rescan the whole shooting match?

Hey @audiomuze – I responded to the other FAQ thread. You’ll want the audio extraction part to complete if you want us to continue tracking the files and maintaining any associated edits, plays, favorites, etc.

The audio extraction process is distinct from the analysis process, and much faster.

Thanks @mike, I asked separately because I saw them as two different scenarios. If I’ve understood correctly you’re saying that moving your music from one pc to another and pointing Roon to that new location will result in everything being retained so long as the extraction process completed at the old location, and so long as the existing database is used for the refresh?

Does it also imply that files and folders can be renamed and moved to a different machine and subsequently still be identified by Roon as the same file regardless of original file names and folder names?

Once we’ve extracted the audio, that’s what we’re using to identify the file in the database. In our testing, we retagged and renamed files, and moved them to new storage devices, and in all cases we tried Roon was still able to track the file and retain its edits.

Can you explain what you mean by “different machine”? Different storage device? Different machine running your Core, with database copied over?

@mike

Let’s assume I point Roon to a subsection of my library located on a Windows desktop pc in a folder called c:\newmusic inside of which albums are filed under ‘artist - album’ and I use it for a few months. I subsequently decide to rename some of the folders holding albums, correct/ tidy up file names here and there and ultimately move the entire subsection to my fileserver on the network which houses the bulk of my library (which at this juncture is not known to Roon). I close/ stop Roon and use a file manager to move the subsection of my collection to the file server. Each album is moved to the most appropriate sub folder structure A/ through Z/ and filed /artist - album/ Albums from the Windows desktop are now moved to an entirely different folder structure bearing no resemblance to that they originated from.

Next I point Roon for the first time to the file server now housing my entire collection of albums and remove the pointer to c:\newmusic (which is in any event now empty or no longer exists). Will Roon recognize the albums/ tracks moved from c:\newmusic and retain all the attributes you referred to or will it see them as new and reanalyse them?

Yes, that’s the idea. Just keep in mind that the main rule of thumb is that if you’re moving music to a new location, move it – don’t copy it and end up in a situation where the content is in two places at once. Also, since Roon is identifying the tracks based on the audio only, you may want to proceed carefully if there are any dupes in both the “newmusic” folder and in the main library.

I would probably start with both the newmusic folder and the bulk of the library in Roon, then remove the newmusic folder from Roon’s list of watched folders. Since the albums will now be “missing” from your library, you can start to file them away with the main library, and Roon will recognize each “new” album as already being in the database.

That’s great to know and incredibly useful functionality as users will inevitably migrate libraries to different drives and hardware over time. Thanks @mike.

@mike, having just read Audio analysis taking weeks and keeps restarting could you clarify why @sdolezalek is experiencing the issue … based on what I’ve gleaned from this thread it should not happen.

I think I cleared up the confusion in the other thread, but take a look and let me know if it answers your questions @audiomuze

Sorry for reviving an old thread but I want to make sure I understand the implications before I proceed. I had to replace a hard drive on my main nas. Because I have a lot of data on that nas aside from music the rebuilding process should take about 2 days. While I am at it, i am going to expand the raid so that should take another day. Of course I do not want to be without music for that long, especially over the weekend. The good news is that I have an exact, synced copy of my music library located on a second nas. If I am understanding this thread correctly, I can simply got into the Roon settings, change the path of my music library and all the data and edits Roon has on my library will be retained? When my main nas is done rebuilding the RAID, I can change the music library path again to the original without any issues?

This is what the music path will change from and to

Original music path
Nas_1/music/music

New music path
Nas_2_Backup/Backup/music/music

You should be able to do it. Check out this knowledge base article.

Just make sure you shut down Roon and backup your library folder.

Cheers, Greg

Sorry belaboring this but assuming my second NAS has an exact copy of my music files, this will also work? It seems like the knowledge base and this thread is talking about moving a library to another location. I assume what I want to do should work but I was not sure if Roon embeds any data into the actual music file or file location so a copy would not necessarily be exactly the same.

Let’s flag @mike or @vova to confirm this for you.

Cheers, Greg

I don’t believe that Roon in its current form touches file metadata at all, other than to read it.

Assuming Watched folders only (don’t use Organised folders), Roon doesn’t alter the music files at all and doesn’t store any information in the music folder. All Roon information is stored in the database.

Moving the library to a new location can occur either by copying files or moving them. The main thing to remember (and it is slightly counterintuitive) is to ensure that the old location is removed as a watched folder before the new one is added. This ensures Roon only sees one set of files at a time. If you leave the old location active and add the new one then Roon will treat the new location as additional and add heaps of duplicate files. You don’t want that.

There is a minor typo in the KB article. Steps 2 should read “Ensure Roon can no longer …”. When I get home I’ll edit in the “no”.

Take a backup of your database before you start.