When paired with another device, that is.
Synology’s latest home business NAS could make an amazing Plex upgrade. Available today, the four-bay Synology DiskStation DS923+ offers excellent PCIe Gen 3 support, up to 10Gb Ethernet connectivity (with an upgrade), and compatibility with Synology’s DX517 expansion unit for up to 120TB of storage.
To be clear, this isn’t a single-device solution for Plex. The Synology DiskStation DS923+ is primarily intended for businesses, and the hardware isn’t suited for media conversion (there isn’t even an integrated GPU). But the DS923+’s excellent networking and storage capabilities (plus its price) make it a strong media storage solution. Pairing the DS923+ with a more capable media-transcoding device, such as the NVIDIA Shield TV or an Intel NUC PC, would result in an outstanding Plex media server.
Without any upgrades, the DS923+ features 4GB of DDR4 EEC RAM, 1Gb Ethernet connectivity, and an AMD Ryzen R1600 CPU (which delivers solid performance and increased PCIe Gen 3 support). It can store up to 50TB of data with 625/559 MBps read and write speeds, and the DSM 7.1 platform gives you a ton of RAID redundancy options.
But this NAS device really starts to shine when it’s upgraded. It can run a maximum 32GB of DDR4 EEC RAM, and an optional RJ-45 module adds 10GbE support. A Synology DX517 expansion unit adds five extra drive bays for a maximum 120TB of storage, and two extra m.2 NVMe 2280 SSD bays at the bottom of the chassis can accept PCIe Gen 3 SSDs for improved caching and file retrieval.
All of this awesome hardware arrives for just $600—an excellent price. Again, the DiskStation DS923+ lacks integrated graphics, so you should pair it with an external device if you plan to use it for media streaming.
Synology DiskStation DS923+
The reasonably-priced Synology DiskStation DS923+ offers a ton of upgradability, with 10GbE support and up to 120TB of storage when pushed to its limit.
