Metadata kept when re-organising NAS?

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1

I’m about to split my 4000 albums into a main and secondary library, and also put a new folder structure in place for both.

I know the file metadata will remain unchanged, what about the changes I’ve made in Roon (e.g. ratings, tags etc). Will they go across automatically to the new structure?

2

Hi Phil,

It will be fine, go for it … however it would be prudent to take a Roon DB backup before your start.

I would suggest stopping the Roon Core whilst you are moving the files around and then restart it once you have them all in there new locations. Edit the original watched folder and then after the scan completes add in a new watched folder for the second location.

3

Good idea - I’ve got my system on automatic library backup but no harm in doing a manual one now.

Thanks

Phil

4

I’ve just been through extensive reorganisation of a large library, moving files and folder across drives within the watched tree and had no issues.

5

Thanks, that’s reassuring

6

OK, going well so far. I’m moving stuff around and putting some albums in new folders & sub-folders, all within the original master Music folder. No problems yet.

When finished I will essentially have two sub-folders within Music - my primary library and my secondary libraries. I want to have Roon play just the primary library, which I can do by making that a watched folder and secondary a not-watched one.

If so, how could I play albums in the secondary library as and when needed?

  • Will what I’m doing retain all the Roon tagging within the secondary folders?

  • If I make the secondary folder a watched one, on a temporary basis, presumably Roon will then go through and index the whole thing, which will take ages. Maybe better to have an ‘Interim’ folder that is watched, if I want to play from the secondary library I can temporarily move albums into it, meaning Roon only indexes those

Or is there a better way of achieving this, using tags, focus, or other means? Any ideas welcomed…

7

Hi Phil,

You should configure a Roon watched folder for each sub-folder.
Then you can enable / disable the watched folders as and when required.

Example watched folders could be:
/Music/Primary
/Music/Secondary

Yes, but it must be a watched folder for Roon to see it.
Whatever you do, do NOT clean the library until setup or Roon will discard its data for the non-watched albums.

Rescan, yes but that take only a few seconds … Roon does not have to perform audio analysis again just because a file has been moved to a new folder or watched.

There are alternatives, but with pros and cons; for example you could tag all the albums in the secondary watch folder and then filter them out using focus… but then again you can also filter on location.

Some much is on personal preference, there’s not really a right or wrong way.
Hope that helps.

8

Carl

Yes very helpful, thanks. I hadn’t appreciated you can Focus by location, which is certainly an option if I set up the two watched folders as you suggest (which was what I was planning).

Can you please clarify what you mean by clean the library, and check that I’m doing things in the right order, which is as follows.

  • All music currently sits in one master Music folder on my Synology NAS, which is currently the only watched folder.
  • There are numerous subfolders within this, I’ve created 2 news ones within it (Primary and Secondary) and am in the process of moving everything into one or the other of those.
  • Taking some time - I have 4000 albums. It will also take some time for the mid 2010 Mac Mini to re-index everything (at present some of the tracks I’ve moved are not playing on Roon until they have been re-indexed, which I presume is normal)
  • Once completed I will make the Primary and Secondary folders watch folders.
  • I am assuming I then remove the ‘watch’ on the main Music folder.

Does that make sense, have I missed anything or,got anything drastically wrong?

Thanks, Phil

9

Sounds good, just one small but important change:

  • /Music
  • /Music/Primary
  • /Music/Secondary

Having all three 3 watched folders active at the same Roon might cause trouble as there is a risk that Roon will see albums in the new watched folders as ‘new’ albums not as relocated albums … which will result in Roon importing them from scratch, marking them as new and analysing them… not what you want.

So you should either:
Remove the /Music watched folder first before adding the two new ones.
OR
edit the /Music watched folder and repoint it at /Music/Primary
Then create a 2nd watched folder for /Music/Secondary

So you end up with just these Watched folders:

  • /Music/Primary
  • /Music/Secondary

and no risk of overlap.

Library Clean Up
Roon --> Settings --> Library --> Clean Up Library
If a previously watched file (ie it’s in Roon’s Database) is removed or no longer accessible then Roon gives you the option to remove the reference to it from the Roon DB. Think of it a house keeping.

This should only be performed (if required) … once all the watched files have been reconfigured … if you do it early (say before the Secondary folder is watched) then cleaning the library would remove all the references (metadata, import date, play count, edits, etc.) to the files that are in /Music/Secondary.

10

The devils is in the detail - I was wondering about having all 3 folders watched at the same time

Many thanks - it’s all clear now

Phil

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