New Plex Server configuration suggestions

[sk8er000]

Hello,
I’m running plex for quite a long time and my hardware is becoming obsolete.
My actual setup consists of a QNAP NAS where I store my files, set the backup rules, run Tautulli and download managers plus a PC running Win10 where I installed the Plex Server to store plex metadatas and some other programs (mainly to encode and manage the video files). The transfer rate between the devices is quite good and I can have 4 or 5 local/remote streams to 720p/1080p, depending on the network and transcodings.

I’d like to migrate to a newer hardware to improve my Plex capabilities. But I’d like to ask some questions.
Since having a NAS to store my files (not only for Plex) it’s very useful for me it will be necessary continuing to use a NAS.
Anyway since the price of the NAS seems very expensive compared to the specs they have (I know you’re not paying only the HW but also SW and reliability) I’m undecided between 2 scenarios.

Assuming a budget around 1500€ (without HDDs) is it better to buy the most powerful NAS for my budget (maybe used like a QNAP TVS-472N-i3-4G upgraded to 32gb of RAM) or buy a cheaper NAS (something like a TS-453D) and building a PC for Plex encoding(with a CPU like a Ryzen 5 3600)?
Wich setup will give me the best Plex experience?
The models I chose are only an example, if there are a better choices on the same price range I’ll be happy to know wich models are preferred.

Thank you in advance

[BobSnot]

Personally i like to keep them seperate.

My oldest NAS is over 10 years old and still works just fine as all it has to do it be a storage device and move data around.

I’ve had maybe 4 or 5 PMS servers attached to it over the years, each an upgrade over the prior as Plex adds more features that I care about. As you have seen, NAS devices are very expensive to use as compute devices.

Keep your existing NAS, buy a new server - put all your apps on it.