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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.

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

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

Plex serves video two ways. Direct play sends the file to your TV untouched, and almost any hardware can do it, because the server is just moving bytes. Transcoding re-encodes the video in real time, and that’s the part that needs a capable chip. You transcode when someone watches remotely on limited upload bandwidth, when a device can’t handle a codec in your library, when subtitles have to be burned in, or when a 4K HDR file plays on a 1080p screen and needs tone mapping. If everything in your house plays through an Apple TV or a Shield on your local network, you may never transcode at all,