Native

Folder Structure

For this example we're going to make use of a share called data.

The data folder has sub-folders for torrents and usenet and each of these have sub-folders for tv, movie, books and music downloads to keep things neat. The media folder has nicely named TV, Movies, Books and Music sub-folders, this is your library and what you’d pass to Plex, Emby or JellyFin.

In this examples I'm using lower case on all folder on purpose, being Linux is case sensitive.

data
├── torrents
│   ├── books
│   ├── movies
│   ├── music
│   └── tv
├── usenet
│   └── complete
│        ├── books
│        ├── movies
│        ├── music
│        └── tv
└── media
     ├── books
     ├── movies
     ├── music
     └── tv

Breakdown of the Folder Structure

Torrent clients

qBittorrent, Deluge, ruTorrent

The reason why we use /data/torrents for the torrent client is because it only needs access to the torrent files. In the torrent software settings, you’ll need to reconfigure paths and you can sort into sub-folders like /data/torrents/{tv|movies|music}.

data
└── torrents
     ├── books
     ├── movies
     ├── music
     └── tv

Usenet clients

NZBGet or SABnzbd

The reason why we use /data/usenet for the usenet client is because it only needs access to the usenet files. In the usenet software settings, you’ll need to reconfigure paths and you can sort into sub-folders like /data/usenet/complete/{tv|movies|music}.

data
└── usenet
    └── complete
         ├── books
         ├── movies
         ├── music
         └── tv

The Starr Apps

Sonarr, Radarr, Readarr and Lidarr

Sonarr, Radarr, Readarr and Lidarr gets access to everything using /data because the download folder(s) and media folder will look like and be one file system. Hardlinks will work and moves will be atomic, instead of copy + delete.

data
├── torrents
│   ├── books
│   ├── movies
│   ├── music
│   └── tv
├── usenet
│   └── complete
│        ├── books
│        ├── movies
│        ├── music
│        └── tv
└── media
     ├── books
     ├── movies
     ├── music
     └── tv

Media Server

Plex, Emby, JellyFin and Bazarr

Plex, Emby, JellyFin and Bazarr only needs access to your media library using /data/media, which can have any number of sub folders like Movies, Kids Movies, TV, Documentary TV and/or Music as sub folders.

data
└── media
     ├── movies
     ├── music
     ├── books
     └── tv

Don't forget to look at the Examples how to setup the paths inside the applications.

Permissions

Recursively chown user and group and Recursively chmod to 775/664

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /data
sudo chmod -R a=,a+rX,u+w,g+w /data