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You want to stop paying for cloud storage: the DH2300, or the DH4300 Plus if you want RAID 5 and room to grow. You want a small Plex server: the DXP2800. You want one NAS that does everything well: the DXP4800 Plus. This is the default answer. You’ll run VMs or heavy Docker workloads: the DXP4800 Pro for the extra cores and 96GB memory ceiling. Network speed matters more than Plex: the DXP4800 GT (dual 10GbE), or the DXP2800 GT in a 2-bay. You’re consolidating everything into one box: the DXP8800 Plus, or the DXP6800 Pro if six bays are enough. Whichever unit you pick, put a UPS in front

The decision really comes down to hardware transcoding. The Plex package on a Synology NAS does not support hardware transcoding, which means if you’re streaming media that needs to be transcoded (different format, lower quality for bandwidth, etc.), the CPU has to do all of the work. On most Plus series devices, that’s fine for one or two streams. Beyond that, you’ll start to see buffering or quality drops. Docker is the only way to get hardware transcoding working on a Synology NAS, and it only works on devices with an Intel CPU that supports QuickSync. Any Ryzen-based Synology will not supp

Before installing any update, ask yourself if you actually need to. Media servers are designed to stream media to client devices, so if everything is working and you’re not looking for new features, there might not be a reason to update. If you’re exposing Plex outside of your local network, you have more of a reason to keep it updated for potential security fixes. But if you’re only using it for local network streaming, you can introduce new bugs that you weren’t experiencing before, so updating “just because” isn’t always the right call.

Small library, tight budget: the DXP2800. Cheapest real transcoding in a NAS. One box that stores and serves, the default answer: the DXP4800 Plus. Big library, VMs, or one machine for the whole lab: the DXP6800 Pro, or the DXP8800 Plus for eight bays. You already own a NAS you like: put a Beelink EQ14 next to it and let the mini PC do the transcoding. You’re set on Synology: buy it for DSM and the backup tooling, not for Plex, and plan around direct play. Whichever way you go, the drives matter more than the RAM: use CMR drives, not SMR, and my NAS hard drive guide covers the ones I trust