Looking for 8 Bay Plex (primarly) NAS

[Enquiries]

I currently have QNAP and Synology NAS. One of each. They are both low end and only 2 bays. I also have older Buffalo servers that have been running for years.

My plan is to store almost 1000 titles on a Plex NAS. They will be in 4k and below resolution.

I want the NAS to have built in backup, thus the 8 bays. I've read/listened your reviews and it seems every brand has good and bad and thus am hoping you can recommend the best reasonably priced NAS for this Plex use. By reasonably priced I mean below $2000 for the NAS, without drives.

Thank You.

[ed]

Hi, thanks for getting in touch. For a Plex library of around one thousand films, including full resolution 4K files, an eight bay NAS is a sensible choice since it gives you a large single volume and the ability to run RAID with protection while still having plenty of usable capacity. In your budget range there are three realistic choices right now, each with different strengths.

If you want the best overall Plex performance for the price, the QNAP TVS-h874 is the strongest option. It uses a modern Intel Core CPU with integrated graphics so it handles native playback very smoothly and can manage limited transcoding if needed. The hardware is significantly more capable than the older Celeron and Ryzen V series you find in cheaper models. You also get dual 10GbE and two M.2 slots for SSD caching or tiering.

If you prefer a lower power system without sacrificing too much performance, the QNAP TS-855X gives you eight HDD bays plus two SSD bays and a Ryzen based platform that is ideal for 4K Plex direct play. It also includes both 10GbE and 2.5GbE. It costs less than the TVS series but is still much faster than typical entry level models from Synology or Buffalo.

If you prefer Synology software and plan to avoid transcoding by using native playback, the DS1825 is the newest eight bay option. It offers good performance for large libraries, strong indexing for photos and metadata, and long term updates. It lacks hardware transcoding for Plex, so it only makes sense if your client devices can play the original files directly. The advantage is that DSM is easy to use and stable for long term storage.