Synology’s 2025 refresh brought the DS225+ and DS425+ with the familiar Intel Celeron J4125, but it also quietly removed the kernel graphics driver support that Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby use for hardware transcoding of H.264 and HEVC. This guide explains what changed, why it matters for real-world streaming, and how you can restore GPU-accelerated transcoding on these models using an unofficial SSH method shared by the community. If you rely on your NAS to reshape 4K or high bitrate files for phones, tablets, hotel TVs, or limited connections, this walkthrough will help you get that efficiency back.
Off the shelf nas? Build your own. I use Xpenology. It turns my hardware into a synology nas. I did buy a Unas case, so it is a nas style, but anything that holds disks will work. Yes a little tinkering still but not much. Bootable usb stick is easy enough. I’ve also used Freenas/truenas. I like them well enough, but I had gotten used to synology. Just don’t want to buy their hardware. I run two. Works just fine.