http://www.synology.com/products/produc ... j&lang=enuI use one of these fitted with two WD20FAEX drives configured as JBOD. The primary reason for the purchase was for it to act as a backup for all the photos, music, home videos, commercial DVDs etc that we have. So it acts as a 'media centre' allowing me to stream music, videos, films etc. around the house.
For music I stream from the Synology to a Logitech Squeezebox Touch connected to my (existing) stereo system. The Squeezebox could also be connected to a TV surround sound system - Onkyo and the like.
Videos are streamed to TVs in the house (all Samsung LCD or LED TVs) which are networked using Belkin AV200 Powerline adaptors.
The PCs are connected to the Synology box with Cat5e cable via a gigabit switch, so the Synology box acts as a 'communal' back up device rather than a NAS per se.
The gigabit switch is connected to a wireless modem router to provide an internet gateway. This modem router also acts as the switch for the AV200 Powerline network as 100Mb/s is perfectly adequate for video etc streaming.
Previously I had gone with an HDX1000 media player but the company supplying that device 'went away' (to use your terminology). Couldn't be happier with my Synology box but if I was starting again I would go fro the DS212+ rather than the DS212j.
AMD Ryzen 3900x 12C/24T, ASUS x570 mobo, Arctic Liquid Freezer ll 280, Win11 64 bit, 64GB RAM, Radeon RX 570 graphics, Samsung 500GB NVMe 980 PRO (C:), Samsung 970 Evo SSD (D:), Dell U2717D Monitor, Synology DS412+ 8TB NAS, Adobe CS6.