Best 4K Plex NAS of 2022/2023

Maybe a stupid question... I want to play 4k HEVC content but it will be lan or wlan attached to a 4k tv... so then no transcoding is needed right? so then how beefy of a nas cpu do I need? (I don't ever see myself wanting to watch my content on my mobile phone or laptops.)

Having spent the better part of two days watching your videos, I'm concluding that there is NO NAS that will handily Transcode 4K down to 720p which is my current need for recalcitrant family members who won't upgrade their TVs. I had hoped that 4K rokus on their client side would do the heavy transcoding lifting but they don't. Whenever they play anything my Plex Server does the transcoding. I'm starting to think that in my context I might as well go with the Synology DS1522 and keep 1080p or lower files for my family and 4K files for myself because every device/TV I have plays back 4K natively. Am I missing something? I should note that 90% of my library is h.265 with about 90% of that 1080p and 10% of that 4K. Instead of spending money on higher end NASs I should probably buy my family members new 4K TVs :)

Looking to builds a multimedia server (internal use only), only 1 to 2 streams max. Looking at the specification on the models you listed, it appears only the Lockerstor 4 Gen2 has a N5105, all the others have the N5095. Does the 16EUs of the N6095 vs the 24 EUs of the N5105 have any impact on final performance? Is there any issue with using 2 drives Rade 1 and add in a send pair raid 1 later? With cost aside how would you rank the 3 4 bay nas? Thanks

OMG what is up with you people discounting Synology because it doesn't provide enough gpu transcoding for you, therefore it's a loser? I had a 220+ which was fine and now the 1522+ and it's awesome. Plays all my 4K videos perfectly and as well or better than my previous. What is this obsession with transcoding videos when you're buying a $1000 NAS that does so much more and the new processor does cartwheels around the previous Celeron on the 220+. I mean how many people are watching fricken videos on their phone and flipping out if it buffers? I tested and it works just as well as the 220+ for my needs, no buffering or stuttering and remote play just as seamless. So are there seriously tens of thousands of people using their NAS to share their library and expecting 10 for more simultaneous transcoding streams to all their kids or friends or.... customers? it's lunacy to see all the complaints about this one feature not being optimized with their choice of a new CPU which frankly is so much faster and efficient on every other task I use my NAS for like video and photo editing on the fly, backing up and accessing Synologydrive, music streaming and everything else. And no problem playing and I guess transcoding a stream when needed. So just STFU with all the negative whiners who seem to have no life but watching multiple streams on multiple phones at any given time, therefore this is a crappy NAS? Give us a break and get a life. It's an awesome product.

I have a NUC computer running Plex (i7, 16GB of RAM), and it pulls the files from an old single drive WDMYCLOUD unit which constantly disconnects, so I am looking to replace the NAS drive, but I'm wondering if it makes sense to move to a full featured NAS that can run Plex on its own since I have the NUC. The NUC runs a couple of streams at once (1080p) no problem. I want to get a 4 bay NAS so I can run RAID for redundancy. What unit would you suggest since I have the NUC? (I don't have any other use for the NUC if I don't use it for Plex)

I love that qnap but I would say the only thing for me is that CPS does not have 10bit AV! decode encode. Where the next gen will. And you can already see media starting to pop up with AV1. Given how long I keep a NAS I would rather wait one more year and get AV1 encode and encode to give me that "decade" you talk about.

Ages ago I decided that I don't need a purpose built NAS anymore so I sold my Synology. Instead, I built a very simple linux server with only one - yes one - 8TB drive for my data. But I am syncing this to a cloud storage service. So now: 1) I can run any service I want from the vast amount of choices in the Linux space; 2) I have a remote copy of my data in case the NAS is physically "gone"; 3) I can be more cost effective, since paying for cloud storage and replacing 1 HDD every 3 years works out about the same as owning 6 HDDs and replacing all of them within 3 years; 4) I can access my data in a much more efficient and fast way when I am away from home; and 5) All the smarphones in the household are automatically and seamlessly backing up pics and data to the cloud.
I also recently plugged a full size nvidia P2000 GPU, and I can now stream hardware transcoded videos with Plex to more devices than I ever dream of owning.

Still running the DS1019+ and it has been a great NAS.

I'm super confused...any productive suggestions welcome! I'm a Mac user who is somewhat knowledgable about a variety of computer and electronic stuff, but NAS is completely new to me. I have about 6,000 DVD titles. Most of my disks are feature length movies, but I have a substantial amount of TV shows with complete series. So, although I have 6,000 titles, that includes episodic titles. Like most people, I've got a budget, but, because of the amount of work that is going to be required to rip all these titles and store them, it's a pretty substantial investment of time and money, so going with the cheapest isn't my goal. The plan is to use Plex as opposed to Jellyfin, because I want as much simplicity as possible. If anyone would like to make some helpful recommendations or advice, I would be grateful. The server will likely never be shared as there are only two in our household and we will rarely tap into the system when traveling. We are not gamers. This will be for TV and Movies only, although I may used the surveillance capabilities down the road. We will almost always just watch on one large screen TV in the family room. Thanks.

where can we get a hold of that 4k File you use to test? the 400mb 4k 1.5GB for 30 s clip.

@NASCompares. Can i use HS-264 as Transcoding/Media player for Files from my Synology rs1221+ to playback/transcode 4k media files? Or is it a mess to configure? What would you recommend from all of your list for my usecase. Or any other idea? like raspberry pi? Background is that i want to just play my 4k 10bit+ files over jellyfin app or plex. rs1221+ just have not enought power :/

I have a plex server using a western digital mycloud - sometimes it works great, othertimes i have jittering problems when playing video files, it is connected via ethernet - would changing to one of these models mention fix/improve this problem?

I ended up choosing to run my PLEX server on a quite powerful Windows computer and using the NAS just as a storage unit. Works very well and the NAS processor is not hit by high consumption of resources. Still using an almost 10 year old DS1513+ without any issues.

Great video, I’m much newer to NAS etc. I’m trying to research my best options for a larger NAS system that can do uHD content. If I went with QNAP TVS-h874 NAS and wanted to utilize madVR would I have to build a separate HTPC with a larger graphics card or could this be an all in one unit.

Anyone with experience powering their Home theater with mdVR and a NAS that can point me in the right direction?

So what's keeping the DS920+ off the list this year? Is it just because it's EOL?

I’ve just got to say that a backdrop would do wonders for this video. It’s distracting with all the tech behind him. Great video though.

Love your videos !
Super envious of the hardware you get to test hahaha, terramaster F4-210 user here :(

What do you think about the Nas on Kickstarter Storaxa ?
Again ty !

What is a knicker

What is a quid

Great info and well presented as always, thank you. The 2 minutes of blank at the end with that final frame, even if it was accidental, well played sir :D

Had my 920+ with 4x12tb ironwolf hdds in SHR for 18 months now and love it. Now I’m going to get the expansion bay with 5x18Tb hdds solely for Plex.

Very disappointed that Synology have dropped onboard graphics. Does any other NAS brand with onboard graphics have the equivalent of Synology Hybrid Raid where you can mix HDD capacities without the whole array based on the smallest drive?

Used the Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen 2 NAS for a few months before building my own TrueNAS setup, loved it.👌
Only thing that I didn't care for was having to have tools to remove the HDD's, but that's just creature comforts.😂

I'm just curious where the TS-x64 caps out at (and yes I did see the video of TS-464 vs Synology DS920+ Plex). The video transcoding and other break points of the TVS-hx74 (aka Ultimate NAS which has definitely peaked my interests) has yet to really be discovered until there's more 8k media. Now I'm just genuinely curious how much multi VM and Plex streaming it takes for a TS-x64 owner (without a connection over 5GbE) to say 'if only I had just gone with that TVS-hx74 ultimate NAS 2023'. Maybe like a New Years 2022/2023 NAS Showdown QNAP TS-x64 vs TVS-hx74 or something of the like lol

I'm surprised there aren't any Synology NAS on that list. I thought they were the best Masses but seems things are changing.

How does the h874 compare with the h1688x for 4k plex and other operations?

Jriver MC 👍👍

Qnap questions (anyone)

QNAP: Can a Qnap NAS be easily set up in beginning by novice to be secure? Reason I ask is ransomeware history. (more)

QNAP: Also if you can set it up as secure (based on Qnaps instructions re disabling ports etc) , are you limiting access for remote access users via mobile app in any way?…Are you making some things unavailable on your network for other devices or games etc that need direct access to your network OR are the settings you change solely to do with Qnap NAS only and have no effect on other devices, games etc ?

I’ve been a Synology fanboy for years and run Plex on a DS920+. Synology had to know when they released a SOHO NAS that can’t properly handle 4K Plex that they were handing over the home market to QNAP. A real shame, as I really prefer DSM for its stability, security, and ease of use. But them’s the breaks…

Having used both Qnaps and Synologys DSM software, I'd still be sticking with Synology 920 despite the better qnap hardware. DSM is so much nicer and easier to use.

Cool

Great video! Questions (Anybody):

920+: Should you configure 920+ w Synology drives only (for support)? Asking bc Synology seems to push Synology drives on other models. .. OR… is it ok to configure it w non-Synology hard drives?

920+: If you do use Synology drives, can you still set it up as SHR? If so, will you be locked into Synology drives for SHR upgrades to storage later?

920+: If you use non-Synology drives, how do u update firmware for them when needed?

Is there a Synology that comes anywhere close to the QNAP 874 ? I also want to muck about with VM's and containers.

Your excellent review of the QNAP TVS-H874 when ordered with the Intel i9 12th Gen Proc that include the built in dual 10GbE Ethernet ports sounds like a good unit. However, what if your company needs a NAS RAID system that supports 8-24 Native NVMe Gen 3 SSD’s in the front Bays of the RAID Storage Unit? The QNAPs nice to the extent that you can pop a couple of 4 or 8TB NVMe Gen 4 M.2 2280’s inside, but it would be much better, if even the primary front bay storage of the RAID unit was Native NVMe SSD’s. My question is what is the least expensive NAS RAID system out there, that supports Native NVMe SSD in the front bay main storage area? Making the assumption that any NAS system at this performance level, will automatically provide support for at least one single-port 100Gb/sec Ethernet card and hopefully they’d have dual-port 100Gb/sec card available.

Then when you’re offloading the critical speed computations you captured to the internal NVMe M.2 2280 Gen 4 Flash inside the unit, you can quickly transfer that data at a reasonable rate out to your primary NVMe Gen 3 SSD’s in the front bays.
Hype around the QNAP TS-h2940FX sounds great (until you really get into its capability) but it’s really just supporting SATA 6Gb/s SSD drives in the front bays which are really slow drives. If the front SSD’s were at least SAS 24Gb/s SSD’s, it would certainly be better. Thought the QNAP TS-h2940FX is ok, it doesn’t have a version of that NAS that utilizes the Intel Core i9-12900K Gen4/Gen5 processor. Current own the Dell 3660T Workstation which includes the Intel Core i9-12900K Gen4/Gen5 processor with 128GB of DDR5 4800Mhz RAM. This unit also includes one Gen 5 PCIe x16 full-size I/O slot.
Really wish I could find a real (means full support for front bay Native NVMe Gen3 or Gen4 SSD’s) Flash Native NVMe Gen3 NAS System. But really having difficulty finding any NAS with Native NVMe Gen3/Gen4 RAID in the front bays. And the couple we have found, are carrying old Gen 3 Xeon processors that are 5 years old on the mother board. And only support PCIe Gen 3 x8 I/O Expansion slots, what a waste!

Dosent it make more sense to build your own PC instead of paying $2000+ for the qnap h874? I haven't priced out the parts but I believe it'll be cheaper by a large margin. Is qnaps software that good?

Exceptional reviews. Thanks.
What no "Seagulls"? If you recall, (not really), I purchased my TVS-872XT with i7/64GB based on your reviews in the last 8 months for PLEX. It still chokes on playing certain h.265/HEVC encoded videos, not all though, even with a Nvidia GTX 1650 -LP installed. Now I want their TVS-H874 i7/i9 version but, it must have 10GbE on board. If only QNAP had an upgrade/trade-in program. I'd trade out & Up for my TVS-872XT. Thanks for reading this.

is it true plex has issues with downloading your own media on mobile devices?