Use old laptop as Media Server to stream from NAS

Hi,

I'm in the market for a NAS but have discovered transcoding is not supported on lower end boxes. I've searched for info on using a old laptop as the server getting the "content" from the NAS but haven't found a relevant article. The info I've found wants to use the laptop as the NAS.

I have a laptop i5 4 GB W7 (32bit) I can dedicate to a media server (wired or wireless) so it seems if the NAS were a shared drive connected via wired, I could use it with Plex as a media server?

Is this a stupid question?

Thanks,

swjtx99