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Netcup Local Block Storage (12.19€ / TB / mo)
netcup released new addon for their VPSes/root servers.
Local Block Storage
- Starting from 1GB, up to 8TB per volume
- You can upgrade storage capacity instantly without downtime
- You can't downgrade storage capacity. Only solution is to create new, smaller block storage volume and transfer your data to smaller one.
- Daily billing
https://www.netcup.de/vserver/local-block-storage/
What do you think about it?
My take
I didn't benchmark it, but I rate it as "meh" - it doesn't look that competitive (for example 1TB block storage at BuyVM costs $5/mo).
It's nice that there is an option for block storage, but I would advise you to check Backblaze (highly reliable, $6/mo and hourly billing. You can cache most frequently accessed files with JuiceFS to reduce possible latencies.), BuyVM (for local attached block storage) or even Cloudflare R2 as it's not that more expensive and you will offload a lot of work from your server.
I wouldn't recommend netcup block storage for backups of netcup VPS (something that netcup wrote as usecase), as its hosted in same datacenter. It's a lot better to choose backup location that is not physically close (remember OVH fire?).
Comments
If someone wants to test it out - there is a promo until December 19th, 2023 - 8 a.m.
First month of usage completely free of charge.
https://www.netcup-news.de/2023/12/12/jetzt-neu-local-block-storage/
Is it like Hetzner volumes?
Yes, it is the same idea. Both are block storages that you can attach to your VPS, but Hetzner Cloud Volumes are SSD-based and netcup Block Storage is HDD-based.
Hetzner Cloud Volumes are more expensive (44euro for 1TB!), but apart from being SSD-based they also have triple replication, so we cannot just compare prices vs netcup ignoring these obvious benefits.
netcup Block Storage offer is more comparable to BuyVM Block Storage. Both HDD-based.
BuyVM Block Storage is way cheaper, but you need to prepaid for 1 month in 256GB increments so it's not that flexible. If you host 1TB+ then BuyVM is a killer deal compared to netcup offering. If you need just 10GB or use that for short term (couple of hours/days) netcup may end up better deal, because of way more flexible GB increments and daily billing. But for such temporal volume Backblaze is even better - hourly billing, 2x cheaper GBs, first 10GB free...
HETZNER , support webdav, and only 10 eur 5TB/a month
But we cannot compare this to S3 storage. and If its HDD, then no use for high performance use cases.
This I totally a different product. Block storage is for extending your VMs storage capacity.
If you're just storing it without frequent references, I believe it's more convenient to mount WebDAV to your disk using davfs2.
Usually block storage are used for DB storage or file storage purpose that need frequent read and write. and don't know if webdav can offer same performance like a block storage volume.
While we are at it, anyone knows a provider for long-term backup of data? Speed of disk is not important. Should we just use GDrive or OneDrive?
Scaleway Glacier, 2euro for 1TB + local backup on your own disk.
Unless you want really, really long-term backups (6+ years) then you should consider LTO tape.
Depends. AWS Glacier can get cheap too, if you’re not likely to restore anything and if so, it’s small.
For ”hot” S3, Backblaze is prem. I use it.
So it's HDD, and that's not cheap at this price
I asked chatgpt to make a table based on ur info
HostHatch storage VPS if you can wait for a sale. Their regular pricing is already competitive but their sale pricing is amazing.
I'm a netcup customer and could actually test/benchmark their Local Block Storage - but I won't, I'm simply totally not interested because of (a) their very high price, and (b) HDD.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with HDD. But I see a problem with HDD as local block storage and at more than double the price of known to be excellent whole VPS incl. large storage like e.g. my storage VPS from @LiteServer.
And for "just cheap storage" like secondary or tertiary backups there are some available for really low prices, e.g. from @hosthatch (hearsay, I don't have a storage VPS from them), @c1vhosting or ihostart / @Calin (from both of which I have one and am reasonably happy).
TL;DR: netcup, thanks no.
Crunchbits is 3$/TB per month and idrive e2 between 1.5-3$/TB.
CrutchBitch is only in the US though, HH is global and have tons of locations. That costs more
Although they do have a very good reputation and I’d absolutely trust them with my data (my data is always replicated though, I trust nobody)
iDrive I’ve never trusted
But yeah, @crunchbits seems like a good alternative but only if you want the US
I mean would you replicate the data with locations from the same provider?. Personally, I prefer a combination of storage vps and objects storage for backups, location does not make a difference.
I prefer different locations and providers.
I use both S3-based storage and storage VPS, but only because VirtFusion ”requires” it.
While I do want different locations, I currently have:
Prod Dedi: Gravelines (OVH)
Backup VPS: London (HostHatch)
Backup S3: Amsterdam (Backblaze)
If Europe as a continent goes down, I’m fine with my data going with it. Rather have that than any speed throttling while restoring backups EU<>US
I think that the main interest of netcup's block storage is for a relatively small amount of additional storage. For example, if you have a netcup VPS and you wanted to add 20 GB block storage to it, this would cost 0,24€ per month. If you wanted to add 50 GB block storage, this would cost 0,60€ per month
As the amount of block storage increases, you would do better to rethink your strategy, e.g., by moving to a bigger VPS or by getting a storage VPS
Totally agree. I've just calculated and it's almost 8x as expensive as my HostBrr storage, which I got this BF. Sorry, but that's just way too much. Not to mention that I also get VPS and usable chunk of NVMe storage with HostBrr.
Exactly. Only very small amounts could be justified, but as their SSD pricing during various sales events reaches down to 15€ / TB, and that price also includes beefy VPS, this local block storage offer just isn't worth it, definitely not for any bigger amount.
There's a Caveat though: afaik we're talking about HDD here - at a time where SSD already is considered lame by many.
The speed depends on the internet connection. Generally, it is around 200-1000 Mb/s, but retrieving files may be slow.
Has anyone tested its performance? I want to know if it performs like a pure SSD, a pure
HDD, or an HDD with SSD cache.
For block storage HDD is standard though (OVH, Vultr etc). We've used it a lot at Vultr and it works well, but don't currently have a server to test it with at netcup, otherwise would likely try it out.