Best NAS for Plex in 2026: Top 4K Transcoding Picks

Best NAS for Plex by budget

All three tiers here use Intel processors with Quick Sync, so hardware transcoding actually works.

Which should you pick

Why hardware transcoding matters for Plex

Plex's hardware transcoding relies on Intel Quick Sync, a feature built into the integrated graphics of Intel processors like the N100, N150, N5095 and Celeron J4125. When a client device cannot play a file directly (wrong codec, resolution too high, unsupported container), Plex transcodes it in real time. Quick Sync does this efficiently using dedicated media engine hardware, barely troubling the CPU. Without it, Plex falls back to software transcoding, which is far more demanding and can overwhelm a low-power NAS processor within a single 4K stream.

This is why AMD Ryzen and ARM-based NAS boxes are a poor match for anything beyond direct play. The Synology DS923+, DS925+ and DS1525+ all use AMD Ryzen chips with no Quick Sync equivalent, and the QNAP TS-233 and UGREEN DH2300 and DH4300 Plus use ARM processors that cannot hardware transcode at all. Software transcoding on these chips is slow, and a single 4K HDR stream from a large file can push a low-power ARM core close to its limit, resulting in buffering and stuttering.

There is also a Synology-specific catch worth knowing. The DS224+ and DS423+ both use the Intel Celeron J4125, a chip that does have Quick Sync hardware on paper. However, current versions of Synology's DSM operating system have disabled hardware transcoding support for Plex on this platform. So even though the silicon is capable, you will not get hardware transcoding in practice on these two models. This is exactly the kind of gap between spec sheet and real-world capability that catches people out.

A straight answer on Synology and Plex