caribpapi

Yes, I have a Pentium G2020 in my machine. Not the best (by a stretch ), but it does the job well. I have the full specs of my NAS box on my profile somewhere, should you be curious.
 
A quick Google search resulted that Plex on FreeNAS doesn't support hardware transcoding at all, so it's all CPU
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/using-quicksync-for-transcoding-in-plex.69016/
 
Good luck!

The 710 is just there for managemnet and so the board can post. I woudln't use the gpu for transcoding.
 
Let the tvs directly play and the rest of the streams should be fine. Give it a shot.
 
Id also run linux here due to the better gpu support if you want a gpu.

1. I'm not entirely sure about alternatives, but I have been using a FreeNAS box with Plex for the past years and it has been working perfectly for me. The Plex plugin will be installed in a jail, so it's technically fenced off from the other files on the server. It's also very easy to set up remote access which lets you watch your movies anywhere.
 
2. FreeNAS doesn't do RAID in the traditional sense, but uses ZFS volumes. Although the idea is generally similar, there are differences. I suggest reading up on ZFS and it's capabilities before deciding. As for your bootdrive, I have a 8(?)GB USB stick as an OS drive. My motherboard came with an USB port inside the case and it's been living there happily. I think the FreeNAS installation manual even suggests using this method.

Your cpu will probably be fine for transcoding, but really don't transcode 4k, just get it in a format that the clients can play with. What format is your media now?
 
Id personally look unto unraid here, easy to expand and use for a use like this.

I don't have any experience with FreeNAS but I can give you some insight for Windows.
Nvidia limits to 2 transcoding streams simultaneous. This doesn't limit you to 2 streams it just means if you have more than 2 streams that need transcoding the gpu will only handle 2 of them and the CPU must transcode the rest.
 
I have a Nvidia rtx 2070 which i use for Plex transcoding and Gaming ect. When Plex is running a 15Mbps H265 video my gpu usage is about 10% and CPU is about 6-10% per stream. Now this ill depend on the format and container your content is in. All my content is transcoded to MKV H265 using NVEnc with Variable Framerate for smaller files. Audio is set AAC Stereo. I use Same as source for Framerate. So all my content streaming to certain players will get transcoded on the fly. I have had 4 streams going at once all needing transcoded without any issue.
Windows 10 would be perfect.
Are you wanting to run Raid 0 or raid 1? SSD with windows installed would work the best and you can even use it to store plex local application data(thumbnails, previews, ect) It help when browsing content on the players thumbnails will load alot faster then being on the hard dirve. This path can be specified in General Settings.
No real specific settings in Plex need to be enabled I have transcoded quailty set to Automatic with a 60 sec throttle buffer and have maximum simultaneous video transcode set to unlimited.
 
If you got anymore questions on windows based setup just quote me so I see your reply.
 

Thanks for the feedback @ddennis002
 
I've put in around $300+ (memory and mobo as well) so far just to experiment and now I'm thinking I could have gone with just a Synology bay.
 
I'll do more research, but it definitely seems like I'm going to require a solid GPU for some kind of transcoding. I will look into getting a cheap M.2 in case I go the Windows route unless I can find better details on a pure NAS solution that I can run with my current hardware that supports HW transcoding.