NAS is so damn expensive, I'm still planning on building a PLEX media server myself and using it was way. Those QNAP things pushing 2500 for the 4k transcode things it's like OK at that point I can build something myself that has way more of the features I'd want and have way more customizability.
Yeah, I went with mini PCs myself. Have a Lenovo M720 Tiny and a Dell Optiplex 3080 Micro (they are virtually almost the same). You can change parts, there are ample ports available and you can pretty much run any OS you want. In the Dell you can even put 3 storage drives (1x 2.5" and 2x M2) so perfect for an SSD NAS.
The sensible thing is to separate NAS from transcoding. Use NAS only for storage, and solve your computational needs with a mini PC or even just a RasPi.
This. My 4K 10-bit HDR viewing is served from a Intel Celeron N4505 dual-core processor (2.0 GHz/2.9 GHz) + integrated GPU that is running TrueNAS and a bunch of other services + Jellyfin for the actual media.
