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I tried the Plex on NAS, other software on NAS thing. I keep it simple now. A NAS failure (raid controller) meant I realised how messy I'd made it, plus the performance of the software I'd put on there was really bad because it only has a really cheap low power CPU.
What I do now... Treat storage as storage, compute as compute.
I have a Synology NAS but aside from the base storage I only have syncthing on it.
I have a separate pc for my Plex server and home automation. But I researched this, doesn't need much storage (a small on motherboard memory disk for the operating system and basic files), and just a modern low wattage Intel CPU.
A modern x86 has most of the features you need for hardware transcoding. This happens on my PC and a couple of high quality streams do not push CPU above a couple of %. That PC is silent, it's passively cooled and has no fans anywhere.
As for home surveillance... I'm still paused on that. Ubiquiti and others get poor reviews in the wild. Typically are used by shops and garages, and the owners think it's all shit. Google Nest seem the best, but I'm a bit freaked out by surveillance within the home being processed and stored in the cloud. But at least Nest has features I want (only enable video when all the smartphones in the household are outside the house, when a fire alarm goes turn on the video to show me, etc).
You can put Plex on a NAS. I even tried Plex on an Nvidia Shield. But Plex really worked a dream and have a Netflix level experience when I have it a recent Intel CPU
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To ensure my smart TV can play these, i need transcoding, right?
Probably, although another option is to use e.g. a Raspberry Pi, plugged into telly, as the client
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Plex doesn't necessarily need transcoding, in which case you can probably just get away with a NAS. For this to be the case though you need to only be streaming to something on the same network that can direct play (and tell Plex it can) all of the different video formats you have (and if you want subtitles it may need to transcode). You also don't want too big a library.
Otherwise, I looked at this myself a while back but for the price of the better NASs that could cope with transcoding and the like you could get a cheap NAS and a better PC for the Plex side.
The benefit of this is that the storage just sits there unimpacted by the plex processing, etc and any system changes will be discrete. Your NAS in particular doesn't need to be the latest and greatest if all it's doing is acting as storage. I'm still using a 10 years old HP Microserver for mine.
For a ready made option for the plex box I'd look at the Intel NUCs although you can build something sufficient for a few hundred quid.
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to add to this, I'm looking at synology NAS
it'll be used for plex streaming to my smart TV and storage for security cam footage
I'm trying to figure out if I need a NAS that does transcoding. Am I right in saying that transcoding is probably required? While I mostly stream prime/netflix now, i have a ton of old movie/TV show files in various formats on my PC (which will sit in my NAS once built). To ensure my smart TV can play these, i need transcoding, right?