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.
I got a Dell computer that was headed for the dump from someone, installed TrueNAS Scale on it, and it has actually replaced my Synology for everything other than straight up storage. Now the Synology does the storage, and everything else is in TrueNAS. It did take me a few lookups to understand the permissions on TrueNAS, as Synology is much easier to set up in that regard. I like the fine grain permissions controls, sure, but it was definitely not user friendly to a complete noob like Synology was.