Which OS should my Jellyfin NAS run?

[GavGaddis]

i think you will find that it will actually be better using a MiniPC or MicroPC AIO with a decent GPU will blow the socks off a NAS

for a 1-3 user environment, mostly direct play without transcoding something like a newer HP ProDesk Elite Micro will do a good job because it has an intel UHD GPU which transcoding works very well with

of course, leaving the NAS in the mix to do it's job of serving files

the S in NAS is for Storage, not Server for good reason - they do 1 thing well which is serve files

i expect the coming responses will support my belief on the subject

While I get your and TheDreadPirate's sentiment re: boxed NAS vs. using a 'real' built PC, that's effectively what I'm doing already. The core question of my post is meant to poll the mid-to-higher tier storage capacity Jellyfin users what OS they recommend for their Jellyfin rig. The semantics of whether a NAS-killer PC is technically a NAS or not are up for debate, sure, but from researching Jellyfin servers over the past few months it seems like the wider community who are starting to take media servers seriously are building hybrids. NAS second computers that sit on a shelf somewhere to largely act as storage, but with the computing power to handle transcoding on their own without an intermediary 

Sure, the S is storage, but in researching the hardware of a build over the past few months it seems like the vast majority of people are building a NAS that happens to have the guts of a 'real' PC, call it a NAS, but it  also does the grunt work of transcoding on top of also being storage. A hybrid of the two methodologies.

And to that point: I have the hardware side of things figured out, as that's relatively easy to source. The main question remains what OS people tend to use for their home labs/servers/NAS/second PC they built that isn't a Synology/QNAP/insert company pre-built box.