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It really does tick all the boxes, so long as you don’t need the iGPU.
Synology makes some of the best NAS enclosures in the business. The company is responsible for NAS such as the DiskStation DS923+, one of my favorite enclosures from 2023. The NAS comes with four drive bays, an AMD processor, and plenty of other premium features. It just so happens to be the NAS I used for running Plex and streaming all my media, as well as storing files and running a surveillance system. As (Black Friday) fate would have it, the DS923+ is currently on sale right now for Black Friday.
Synology DiskStation DS923+
$480 $600 Save $120
The Synology DyskStation DS923+ is one of my favorite NAS for running Plex, storing data, and doing other resource-intensive tasks to save money on subscriptions and create a smarter home. It’s on sale right now, saving you $120 on an excellent storage enclosure.
What makes the Synology DiskStation DS923+ great for Plex?
It all starts with the operating system with a NAS enclosure. Going it alone and building your own NAS server, making use of one of the available commercial or free software would create a powerful system, but Synology’s DiskStation Manager (DSM) has been developed over the years to be painless to use. It has a populated package manager with plenty of first-party and third-party offerings, as well as Synology’s cloud backing with additional services.
Hardware-wise, we’re looking at an AMD Ryzen R1600 processor with two cores that can hit speeds of up to 2.6 GHz. Joining this chip is 4GB of DDR4 ECC RAM using standard DIMM slots, meaning you can expand this capacity down the line to a maximum of 32GB. I’ve not noticed the preinstalled 4GB module feeling inadequate, and don’t see myself upgrading anytime soon, even if there are some enticing RAM deals currently underway.
Plex isn’t the most demanding software available. In fact, the Intel and AMD processors you’d typically find inside these NAS enclosures are more than a match for Plex, but it’s transcoding where more grunt is required. Although the AMD Ryzen chip does not have an iGPU, it has superior performance to force its way through transcoding. NAS deals are well underway for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and this Synology DiskStation DS923+ is one of the best I’ve found so far.
** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **
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