Is there a reason to run plex on my NAS vs. my server?

[aR3SA4Ry]

I was having a discussion with a guy who seems more knowledgeable about this stuff than I, and I was discussing my setup and he says I’m wasting my resources, and that I should be running Plex Media Server from my NAS rather than my “server” (dedicated PC for Plex). He left before giving me details on why.

My NAS is a Synology 718+ which I’m sure is capable of running Plex. I’m currently running Plex on a Dell OptiPlex 7060 (Ubuntu). From what I can tell, the OptiPlex crushes the Synology:

CPU: i7-8700T @ 2.40GHz (CPU mark = 10,346) vs Celeron J3455 @ 1.50Ghz (CPU mark = 2,255)
RAM: 8Gb 2666MHz DDR4 vs 6Gb 1600MHz DDR3

But, for all I know, since the media files are all stored on the Synology, maybe that shorter path (for lack of a better phrase) makes more of a difference than the hardware specs?

Anyway, that’s my question: Continue running on the OptiPlex, or port it over to Synology? I’m running it in a Docker container either way.

Cheers.

(ps. I’m having no particular issues. Mostly just curious if I could be better utilizing what I have.)

[FordGuy61]

Leave PMS on the Dell.

PMS on the Synology is not able to burn in subtitles when needed. The CPU is not strong enough.
Also, it will struggle mightily to transcode and tonemap 4K HDR rips/remuxes (some low bit rate 4K is OK, but not the typical 50 Mbps+ Blu-ray rip).

I used to run PMS on a DS918+ (same CPU as DS718+). About a year ago I moved Plex to a SFF Lenovo with an i5-10500T running Ubuntu. Best move ever. Zero problems transcoding 1080p Blu-ray rips and burning subtitles (for remote users). I don’t transcode 4K, but the Lenovo can handle 4K HDR transcoding and tonemapping (but not burning subtitles into same).

I still run PMS on the DS918+, but only to test new PMS releases and to serve as an emergency backup if the Lenovo were to go belly up.

Everyone’s use case is different. However, for me, it would be a definite step backwards to use the DS918+ as my primary Plex server.