Hi, I have a 128gb boot drive for ubuntu and ended up with sparkbox's /opt folder installed on this drive. I am unsure if I missed somewhere where I could've installed it on my second, 2TB, drive or if there is a way that I could add this as a storage option. I apologies if this was already on the wiki but I was unable to find it after searching.
12 replies
homeserver_76 wrote:
I would also like to second this request for information about how to add an extra drive for storage. Thank you.
Chris wrote:
Good question — and you didn't miss anything. SparkBox keeps the app and your media separate: the app itself is small and happy on your 128GB boot drive, while your movies, TV, and downloads are the big part and belong on the 2TB. The setting that does this is Media Root — open Settings and look under Media for Media Root, then point it at the 2TB drive's mount path and save. Just know that only works once Ubuntu has that drive mounted at a stable location. Tell me how the drive appears (paste what lsblk shows) and I'll give you the exact, safe steps to mount it so it survives a reboot.
Chris wrote:
That is everything I need. Three commands give your 2TB drive a permanent home. Run them in order: sudo mkdir -p /mnt/2tbmedia echo "UUID=a6e0dc54-f2fb-4601-98cc-d68aea5c402d /mnt/2tbmedia ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab sudo mount -a The nofail means your box still boots even if that drive is ever unplugged. Confirm with df -h — you should see /mnt/2tbmedia with about 1.8T free. Then open Settings, Media Root, and set it to /mnt/2tbmedia/media, then save; SparkBox recreates the media stack on it. Paste back any error and I will take it from there.
fireballe123 wrote:
Okay so currently I believe it is set to: /opt/sparkbox/data/media as such I have swapped it to: /run/media/hammad/2TBMedia/media I created a folder named media inside of my ssd named "2TBMedia" I would assume this would work but can you double check me thank you. EDIT: Correction, I tried this and it said it wouldn't work: "Invalid path for "MEDIAROOT": path must start with one of: /opt/sparkbox, /mnt, /media, /srv, /data, /home, /volumeN, /share/<name" Please let me know how I can fix this thank you. This is the lsblk prompt as asked. NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS loop0 7:0 0 66.8M 1 loop /snap/core24/1587 loop1 7:1 0 4K 1 loop /snap/bare/5 loop2 7:2 0 19.6M 1 loop /snap/desktop-security-center/150 loop3 7:3 0 273.7M 1 loop /snap/firefox/8107 loop4 7:4 0 16.5M 1 loop /snap/firmware-updater/226 loop5 7:5 0 606.1M 1 loop /snap/gnome-46-2404/153 loop6 7:6 0 91.7M 1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1535 loop7 7:7 0 395M 1 loop /snap/mesa-2404/1165 loop8 7:8 0 18.8M 1 loop /snap/prompting-client/204 loop9 7:9 0 15.7M 1 loop /snap/snap-store/1367 loop10 7:10 0 49.3M 1 loop /snap/snapd/26865 loop11 7:11 0 580K 1 loop /snap/snapd-desktop-integration/361 sda 8:0 0 1.8T 0 disk └─sda1 8:1 0 1.8T 0 part /run/media/hammad/2TBMedia nvme0n1 259:0 0 119.2G 0 disk ├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 1G 0 part /boot/efi └─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 118.2G 0 part /
Chris wrote:
Found it — that error is SparkBox doing its job, not a bug. The dashboard only accepts a media path that starts with /opt/sparkbox, /mnt, /media, /srv, /data, /home, /volumeN, or /share/<name, and /run/media/hammad/2TBMedia is none of those. That /run/media spot is Ubuntu's temporary desktop auto-mount, so it wouldn't survive a reboot either. The fix is to give the SSD a permanent home under /mnt and point Media Root at that instead. First I need its filesystem and ID, because that decides the exact line. Run: sudo blkid /dev/sda1 — and paste back what it prints. Then I'll give you the exact, safe mount steps.
fireballe123 wrote:
/dev/sda1: LABEL="2TBMedia" UUID="a6e0dc54-f2fb-4601-98cc-d68aea5c402d" BLOCKSIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="2c296049-d84b-4bba-8b6a-bb1d48773cee"
fireballe123 wrote:
It all seemed to work okay - thank you for the help :)
fireballe123 wrote:
Hi Chris, new issue - now jellyfin isn't able to locate downloaded media - Seer was able to communicate with all related apps and had it downloaded properly on the 2TB drive however its just not showing up on Jellyfin.
Chris wrote:
Thanks for the update — this is a normal bump right after moving Media Root, so you're nearly there. The download apps (Seerr, Sonarr, Radarr) re-point to the new drive automatically, but Jellyfin's own libraries keep the folder paths they were first set up with, so they can still be looking at the old drive. Here's the fix: open Jellyfin → Dashboard → Libraries, and for Movies and TV Shows check the folder path. It should read /data/Movies and /data/TV — inside Jellyfin, /data is now your 2TB drive. If it shows the old location, set it to those, save, then run Scan All Libraries. If those already look right and it's still empty, tell me what you see and I'll keep digging.
fireballe123 wrote:
Thanks, I just reselected the paths and it worked, thank you
SSJNobleSix wrote:
I just want to hop on to this thread. Im new to self hosting and I was thinking the same thing. I am on a windows PC and setting all this up. And I love the simplicity and community behind this project. It's a great entery for someone like me. But I'm in the same boat. I have 2 separate 2TB drive with my media. And I'll be trying these solutions to point my jellyfin and the entire arr stack to my separate drives.
Chris wrote:
Welcome — and thanks for the kind words, that's exactly why we keep it beginner-friendly. Two things before you try the steps above, because they'll save you time. First, those mount commands are for a Linux box, not Windows — skip them. Second, and the big one: SparkBox's media stack (Jellyfin, Sonarr/Radarr, the downloaders) all share ONE media folder, so it reads from one drive, not two. Splitting your library across two drives isn't supported yet. I've logged that multi-drive ask for Tom — you're not the first to want it. For now, pick one of your 2TB drives as your media drive. Windows points at drives a little differently, so I've also flagged the exact Windows path for Tom to confirm — I'd rather give you the verified steps than guess.