None of these four 2025 Synology Plus models will hardware-transcode Plex as shipped. The DS225+ and DS425+ carry an Intel Celeron J4125 with Quick Sync, yet Synology support has said hardware transcoding is not supported on those two models. The DS925+ and DS1525+ run an AMD Ryzen V1500B with no graphics engine at all. That single fact decides which is the best Synology NAS for a home media server, and it is why this ranking splits Plex buyers from backup buyers.
We ranked the DS225+, DS425+, DS925+ and DS1525+ on the numbers that drive a home purchase: price per drive bay, memory ceiling, network path, rated power draw and what each box costs to run for a year. No unit was benchmarked here. Every figure traces to a Synology spec sheet or a live Amazon US listing (spec sheets dated August 2026 with DSM 7.4 current, prices read in October 2026). Drives are a separate decision, covered in our NAS hard drive picks.
Best Synology NAS picks at a glance
For a home that wants backups, photos and file sharing on one box, start with the DS925+. It is the cheapest 4-bay Synology with ECC memory, a 32 GB ceiling and an expansion port. The DS425+ wins on price per bay. It is also the only current 4-bay Synology whose CPU has a Quick Sync engine, with a caveat covered below:
| Award | Model | Why it wins | Price (check live) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best overall for home and backups | Synology DS925+ | 4 GB ECC, up to 32 GB, 2x 2.5GbE, grows to 9 bays | about $765 |
| Best Synology for Plex and Jellyfin | Synology DS425+ | Quick Sync iGPU, lowest cost per bay at about $145 | about $580 |
| Best 2-bay for backups | Synology DS225+ | 17 W rated under access, mirrored pair for one family | about $365 |
| Best for growth and 10GbE | Synology DS1525+ | 8 GB ECC, 10GbE slot, grows to 15 bays | about $1,310 |
Synology prices on Amazon move often, so treat the column as a band rather than a quote. The ranking itself does not change with a $50 swing, because each award is decided by a hardware limit (no iGPU, a 6 GB memory cap, no PCIe slot) that a discount cannot fix.
Synology DS225+ vs DS425+ vs DS925+ vs DS1525+ compared
Two platforms sit under these four model numbers. The x25 Intel boxes share one CPU, one memory layout and one network layout, and differ only in bay count and M.2 slots. The Ryzen boxes share a CPU and ECC memory, and differ in bays, base RAM, expansion ports and the PCIe slot:
| Spec | DS225+ | DS425+ | DS925+ | DS1525+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Celeron J4125, 4C/4T | Celeron J4125, 4C/4T | Ryzen V1500B, 4C/8T | Ryzen V1500B, 4C/8T |
| Integrated GPU | UHD 600 (Quick Sync) | UHD 600 (Quick Sync) | None | None |
| Memory shipped / max | 2 GB non-ECC / 6 GB | 2 GB non-ECC / 6 GB | 4 GB ECC / 32 GB | 8 GB ECC / 32 GB |
| SATA bays (with expansion) | 2 (2) | 4 (4) | 4 (9) | 5 (15) |
| M.2 NVMe slots | None | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Network | 1GbE + 2.5GbE | 1GbE + 2.5GbE | 2x 2.5GbE | 2x 2.5GbE + 10GbE slot |
| Rated power, access / hibernation | 16.98 W / 6.08 W | 28.25 W / 6.10 W | 37.91 W / 12.33 W | 44.56 W / 13.63 W |
| Noise (Synology rating) | 19.6 dB(A) | 21.6 dB(A) | 20.5 dB(A) | 22.6 dB(A) |
| Price per SATA bay | about $182 | about $145 | about $191 | about $262 |
For most homes the memory row matters more than the CPU row. A 6 GB ceiling on the x25 Intel boxes caps how many packages and virtual machines run at once. Synology recommends 2 VM instances on them against 8 on the Ryzen boxes. Price per bay runs the other way. The DS425+ is the cheapest way into four bays by about $46 per bay, and the DS1525+ charges a premium for its fifth bay and the 10GbE slot.
How the four models were checked
Every number below comes from a document or a listing, and the list says which. None of these units was on our bench. Transcoding claims rest on Synology documents, the CPU makers’ spec pages and the people who documented the x25 driver problem:
- Hardware specs: Synology’s product spec PDFs for each model, all dated August 6, 2026, read line by line for CPU, memory, bays, ports, power and software limits.
- Prices and stock: the Amazon Creators API plus a page read from a New York delivery address, both on the same October 2026 day, confirming a live buy button on every pick.
- Running cost: Synology’s rated access and hibernation watts multiplied over 8,760 hours, priced at an assumed $0.15 per kWh. Swap in your own tariff.
- Transcoding: the Intel ARK entry for the J4125, the V1500B entry on WikiChip, a statement from Synology support on the x25 models and the community driver project that works around it.
Read the power figures with care. Synology measures both figures with its own drives installed, so a box that spends most of the day idle with spun-down drives lands nearer the hibernation figure. On the DS425+ that gap is 22 W, which is about $29 a year at our assumed tariff.
Step 1: Check if Plex needs transcoding
Plex only transcodes when a client cannot play the file as stored: a 4K HEVC rip sent to an older TV, say, or a remote stream squeezed into a slow upload. If every screen in the house direct-plays your library, any of the four boxes will serve it, because direct play is a file read and the CPU barely matters. The trouble starts when a stream does need converting.
Inside the DS225+ and DS425+, the J4125 has Intel UHD Graphics 600 with Quick Sync, which is what Plex and Jellyfin use to transcode. On the x25 firmware it does not work as shipped. Blackvoid published the reply that DS225+ and DS425+ owners got after support checked with the development team: “hardware transcoding is not supported on these two models.” Blackvoid also notes that the BeeStation Plus runs the same CPU and kernel and does transcode for Plex, so this is a firmware choice, not a silicon limit.
A community package restores it. The Transcode for x25 project swaps in working i915 driver modules at boot, its version 4 supports DSM 7.4, and version 3 added the fix for HDR to SDR tone mapping. It is unofficial, and it runs either from a third-party package source in Package Center or as a root script scheduled at every boot. A future DSM update can also break it until the maintainer catches up. We would run it on a media box with a backup elsewhere, never on the only copy of the family photos.
No such workaround exists for the DS925+ and DS1525+, because the Ryzen V1500B has no graphics engine. Every transcode lands on four 2.2 GHz cores, so plan on direct play only. If transcoding is the main job and you are not tied to DSM, our NAS picks for Plex and self-hosting rank boxes with a working Intel iGPU above every Synology. The Synology alternatives guide compares the DSM trade-off directly.
1. Synology DS925+: best overall for home and backups
Buy the DS925+ when the NAS holds things you cannot replace. It ships with 4 GB of ECC memory and takes two identical modules up to 32 GB. A USB-C expansion port adds one DX525, which takes the system from 4 to 9 drive bays without a migration:
A household running Hyper Backup jobs, Synology Photos and a handful of packages, will fit comfortably, with room to grow memory later. Synology rates it at 40 SMB connections in its FSCT file-server test against 10 for the DS425+, and it recommends up to 8 virtual machines. Skip it if Plex transcoding is the point of the purchase, because the V1500B cannot do it in hardware. Skip it too if you want 10GbE, since the DS925+ has no PCIe slot. Two 2.5GbE ports are the network ceiling.
- Memory: 4 GB DDR4 ECC, 2 slots, 32 GB maximum. Volumes above 108 TB need the full 32 GB.
- Storage: 4 SATA bays plus 2 M.2 NVMe slots, 9 bays with one DX525.
- Power: 37.91 W rated under access, 12.33 W with drives hibernating, so $16 to $50 a year at $0.15 per kWh.
Amazon had it at about $765 against a list price near $890 when we checked; check the live DS925+ price. Outside the US you may see a DS925neo+ with non-ECC memory, and our neo+ vs Plus breakdown explains why the US Plus model is the better deal.
2. Synology DS425+: best Synology for Plex and Jellyfin
Among the 4-bay boxes, only the DS425+ has a Quick Sync iGPU, and at about $145 per bay it is also the cheapest of these four per drive. That combination makes it the media pick, provided you accept the community driver package from the previous section:
Buy it for a media library on RAID 5 or SHR with four large drives, which turns 4x 12 TB into about 36 TB usable with one drive of redundancy. The weak spot is memory: 2 GB is soldered, one slot takes a 4 GB module, and 6 GB is the hard ceiling. Synology Photos object recognition needs at least 4 GB, so budget for the D4NS01-4G module on day one. Skip it if you want ECC, more than a couple of containers, or a box that never needs an unofficial package to do its main job.
Read the small print on the two M.2 slots as well. Pools and cache on M.2 still require Synology-verified SSDs, even after the DSM 7.3 drive policy change opened the SATA bays to third-party disks. Network is one 2.5GbE port plus one 1GbE port, enough for a single fast client. Price was about $580 when we checked; see the current DS425+ listing.
3. Synology DS225+: best 2-bay Synology for backups
At 16.98 W under access and 6.08 W with drives asleep, the DS225+ draws the least power of the four, roughly $8 to $22 a year. For laptop backups and phone photos from one family on a mirrored pair, that is the cheapest DSM box worth owning:
Because it shares the DS425+ platform, the same 6 GB memory cap and the same transcoding caveat apply. Two bays in a mirror give you one drive’s capacity, 12 TB from a pair of 12 TB disks, and the only way to grow is to replace both drives with larger ones. There are no M.2 slots and no expansion port. Skip it if your library will outgrow one drive within three years, because a 4-bay box bought later costs more than the DS425+ costs now. Our 2-bay NAS ranking puts it against the UGREEN and TerraMaster boxes at the same price.
The Amazon listing title still advertises hardware transcoding, which predates Synology’s support statement, so do not buy it on that line. Amazon listed it at about $365 when we checked, sold by Amazon.com; check the DS225+ price. The Synology DS223j costs less but drops the 2.5GbE port and the J4125, and we would not save the difference on a box that holds backups for five years.
The other 2-bay Plus model, the DS725+, is left out on purpose. It has 4 GB of ECC memory, a 32 GB ceiling and an expansion port for 7 bays, but its Ryzen R1600 has 2 cores, 4 threads and no graphics engine, and the only Amazon US offer we found was a third-party listing near $600 without a firm ship date. If ECC on two bays matters more to you than about $235, it is the one to watch; the 8-bay DS1825+ is covered in our 8-bay NAS guide instead.
4. Synology DS1525+: best for growth and 10GbE
Only the DS1525+ has a path past 2.5GbE. Its PCIe Gen3 x2 slot takes the E10G22-T1-Mini 10GbE module. Two USB-C expansion ports take two DX525 units, for 15 bays in total:
Out of the box it has 8 GB of ECC memory, double the DS925+. Five bays turn 12 TB drives into about 48 TB usable on SHR-1, or 36 TB on SHR-2 with two-drive redundancy. That suits a home with a video editor or a large photo archive on a 10GbE desktop. At about $262 per bay it costs the most per drive, and the same V1500B keeps Plex transcoding off the table. Skip it if your network stops at 2.5GbE and four bays will do, since the DS925+ gives you the same CPU for about $545 less.
Adorama held the Amazon buy box at about $1,310 with limited stock when we checked, thinner than on the other three; check DS1525+ availability. Ignore the DS1525+ listings that bundle drives at several times the diskless price; compare them against buying the disks separately.
Step 2: Pick drives and memory
When the 2025 Plus models launched, a drive whitelist refused third-party disks for new pools, and many buyers skipped them for it. Synology reversed most of it with DSM 7.3 in October 2025. When you spec a box, that change and the rest of the platform come down to five rules:
- Third-party hard drives: all four models accept non-validated SATA drives for installation and pool creation on DSM 7.3 and later. Pick CMR disks; our CMR vs SMR explainer covers why.
- M.2 SSDs: pools and cache on the M.2 slots still require drives on Synology’s compatibility list. A random NVMe stick will not create a pool.
- Memory upgrades: the DS925+ and DS1525+ need identical modules in both slots, and Synology limits support when non-Synology memory is installed.
- Power protection: a NAS with ECC memory still loses writes in a power cut. Pair it with one of the UPS units we rank for a NAS and let DSM shut down cleanly over USB.
- Off-site copy: RAID is not a backup. Hyper Backup is included on all four, and it can push to a cloud target such as Google Drive.
Drives usually cost more than the NAS. Four large CMR disks can easily cost more than the DS425+ itself, so decide the capacity first and the chassis second. A 4-bay box with two drives today and two next year beats a 2-bay box that is full on day one. Adding a disk to an SHR pool is one wizard, while replacing both drives in a mirror takes two full rebuilds.
Step 3: Plan the upgrade path
Sticker price is half the comparison. What each box can become in three years separates them more than what it is today. The limits are fixed in hardware:
| Model | Memory ceiling | Network upgrade | Max bays | Largest single volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DS225+ | 6 GB non-ECC | None | 2 | 108 TB |
| DS425+ | 6 GB non-ECC | None | 4 | 108 TB |
| DS925+ | 32 GB ECC | None (2x 2.5GbE) | 9 with 1x DX525 | 200 TB with 32 GB |
| DS1525+ | 32 GB ECC | 10GbE module in PCIe slot | 15 with 2x DX525 | 200 TB with 32 GB |
Read the table from the right. A home that will never pass four drives and 2.5GbE is choosing between the DS425+ and the DS925+, and the deciding question is Plex transcoding against ECC and memory headroom. Editing video over the network points to the DS1525+, because neither 4-bay box can add a 10GbE port later. Raw capacity alone does not: the DS925+ also grows to 9 bays and 200 TB volumes once it has 32 GB of memory. For more bays than any of these, our 8-bay NAS guide picks up where the DS1525+ stops.
