thinking of upgrading my NAS that can transcode 4k any suggestions
Why do you want to transcode 4K? Why not just make an optimized version for your non 4K TVs or remote viewing? Plex will transcode the optimized version if transcoding is needed rather than the 4K. Yes this uses more storage space but drives are cheaper then upgrading in most cases.
- you don’t transcode 4K. Because very often you not only have to to the conversion from 4K HEVC to 1080p AVC, but also perform tone-mapping if the source is using HDR color. And that requires a ton of additional CPU power, which cannot be (sufficiently) accelerated in hardware at the moment.
- a NAS which is capable of doing that is prohibitively expensive. Using an add-on PC with a high-end Core i7 or Core i9 CPU (because of QuickSync suport) is much cheaper as a Plex server.
It cheaper to build a plex server than buying a NAS. NAS are not worth the money if you’re primary using it as a media server.
Buy a case with lots of bays for HD. Get a good CPU and board with decent amount of ram. A video video card for hardware transcoding.
You can easily keep your existing NAS for storage. That way the PC can be smaller, without those drive bays.
Unless of course you want to extend your storage further… 
I’m looking for a good NAS style case (SilverStone DS380B looks superb) and a motherboard that can feed that many drive bays while using a GPU and maybe a 2.5 Gbps network jack.
Also, is FreeNAS or UnRAID the better option for Plex hardware transcoding? Or does it even matter?
I am not sure about FreeNas but for Unraid you can have up to 30 drives (28 Data, 2 Parity). You can also mix drive sizes with Unraid. FreeNas uses more traditional Raid solutions. You can search the net, there are articles that compare the two.
I have been using Unraid for years and have been very happy with it. I have never lost any data with multiple drive failures over the years.
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