# External HDD/SSD

**URL:** <https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148>\
**Category:** Support and Troubleshooting\
**Created:** [May 11, 2024, 10:28pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148 "2024-05-11T22:28:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RudP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@RudP](https://community.umbrel.com/u/RudP)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 10:28pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148/1 "2024-05-11T22:28:15Z")

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Hey! Is it possible to add external drive for Plex/JellyFin in Umbrel Home? I plan to copy movies to external drive and make plex/jellyfin to read from external drive. How i understand UmbrelOS is Debian based OS. Mybe i can mount that drive from CLI?

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**Author:** ![tobyjaguar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df788c/32.png) [@tobyjaguar](https://community.umbrel.com/u/tobyjaguar)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 6:56pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148/2 "2024-07-18T18:56:27Z")

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I would be interested to know how to do this as well.

thanks

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**Author:** ![octolance](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/octolance/32/7829_2.png) [@octolance](https://community.umbrel.com/u/octolance)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148/3 "2024-07-19T20:33:17Z")

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Hey @RudP and @tobyjaguar

Currently, umbrelOS does not officially support external storage devices but this will be coming soon in a future update. If you want to have such functionality now, I have written a guide you can follow here: [Unofficial Guide: How to add more storage](https://community.umbrel.com/t/unofficial-guide-how-to-add-more-storage/18397)

Please remember though, that this is a temporary solution and comes with its risks too so only do it if you know what you’re doing.

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**Author:** ![tobyjaguar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df788c/32.png) [@tobyjaguar](https://community.umbrel.com/u/tobyjaguar)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 11:40pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148/4 "2024-07-19T23:40:47Z")

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Thanks for this writeup. I have successfully mounted my USB SSD. I chose to mount it in:  
`/mnt/external1`

But I can’t get Jellyfin to see that path. I wonder if the mount location has to be in the home dir or somewhere the app can access?

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**Author:** ![tobyjaguar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df788c/32.png) [@tobyjaguar](https://community.umbrel.com/u/tobyjaguar)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2024, 5:22am UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148/5 "2024-07-20T05:22:08Z")

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Just to update here. I was not able to get Jellyfin to read the mount point so I ended up adding the mount point inside the data directory of the jellyfin application. Jellyfin is able to see the mounted external drive but I can’t seem to get jellyfin to open any subdirectories of the mounted drive. I can only choose the external mount point for any of the options such as cache, metadata, or a Music folder. Which was the whole point, mounting a music folder from an external 😛

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**Author:** ![tobyjaguar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df788c/32.png) [@tobyjaguar](https://community.umbrel.com/u/tobyjaguar)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2024, 4:15am UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148/6 "2024-07-22T04:15:04Z")

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okay, just to finish the thought here. I was able to get jellyfin to recognize the folder structure on an external hard drive. The issue that I ran into is that all of the apps on Umbrel are docker containers. And docker doesn’t like data directories that aren’t mounted to its container. I tried to add the file path to the docker compose file of the jellyfin app, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. I did however add the mount point inside the jellyfin docker container, and after a lot of poking it finally descended into the directory. I do not know if this was a combination of adding the mount point as a volume inside the container (which I later deleted, and it is still deleted and working), rescanning the library, or adding a music file inside the Music folder. I am not sure what the silver bullet was, but it does work. Maybe this helps someone else. But it is working 🙂

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**Author:** ![hyunjin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/hyunjin/32/6083_2.png) [@hyunjin](https://community.umbrel.com/u/hyunjin)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2024, 10:46am UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/external-hdd-ssd/17148/7 "2024-07-22T10:46:30Z")

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Hello @Rudp 🫡

As per my knowledge, yes, you can definitely add an external drive to your Umbrel Home setup for Plex or Jellyfin. Since UmbrelOS is based on Debian, you can mount external drives from the command line. You should follow these steps:

- Connect your external drive
- Identify the drive
- Create a mount point
- Mount the drive
- Update Plex/Jellyfin

I hope this will help you.

Respected community member 🥰
