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Cheap S3‑Compatible Object Storage
Hi everyone, I’m planning to store ~2 TB of photos in an AWS S3‑compatible object storage setup. My priorities are:
✅ S3 API support (standard S3 methods, compatible with rclone/s3cmd/etc.)
✅ Low cost looking for under ~$10–$15/month for 2 TB storage + up to ~4 TB transfer per month
✅ No heavy API call fees / predictable pricing
✅ Reliable & durable
✅ Best for photo/media storage
I’m aware that big clouds like AWS S3/Azure/GCP tend to be pricey, so I’m exploring smaller or specialized S3‑compatible providers that can offer cheaper storage/egress.
Here are a few options I’ve found please share your real user experience, gotchas, or recommendations!
Comments
backblaze B2
$6 per TB, x3 bandwidth, eg. your storage = 2 TB, you have 6 TB free out traffic per month, API fee is okay, 0.004 per 1000 for some actions
they only have US and EU servers
Hi,
From LET providers, @onidel started doing s3 recently. They offer it in Singapore.
The price for 2TB is $10/m (20% off when paid yearly - $96/y).
And they also have x3, so 6 TB free outgoing traffic per month is included.
You can get our for $4/tb
Or you can take a two 2tb offers from @DediRock / @hostbrr / @NovaCloudHosting for ~$30/y and run garage/seaweed and you will have two copy of your data in 2 different DC for ~ $60/y. The hoster storage already protected by raid 5/6 and you will have your own second copy protection.
Replication is a good idea this is why our object storage is replicated 3x
3x in the same DC?
No, EU / CA / US
Oh, every object is stored in 3 separate countries? Is it possible to get read only access to the replicas?
Why can't I find $ 4 / t?
send me a pm or send a ticket with more information on how you plan to use it, it is possible by changing the end point
Do you use raid 5/6/50/60 (raidz 1/2) or just a stripe?
Promo Code : 50offredit
https://www.systemfreaks.com/object-storage/
RAID is not recommended for object storage. Instead, you should use erasure coding for data protection and replication for availability and redundancy.
Why? You think restore data on one drive from two different dc is easier and faster, than replace a drive and rebuild the raid? 🤔 Or you just safe a money on raid, because you have a two more copies of data?
Its still recommended to use Erasure coding for S3 instead of Raid. One of the reasons is to allow scaling the capacities by adding new nodes. Thats the whole point of S3.
Thanks for mentioning, we've still got some capacities before we'll have all Storage VPS sold out until we can get hold of a new Storage Hostsystem.
No European ones?
Out if stock currently, we don't oversell
https://www.hetzner.com/de/storage/object-storage/
Check this out: https://www.s3compare.io/
So you mean using something like Ceph or GlusterFS?
SeaweedFS can in Erasure coding too. It takes extra ~30% of space for additional restoration data, but not sure it has reason for 1 drive 🤔 I suppose it do the same as Raid 5/6 when on the pool drive you have additional data for restoration when one drive will die.
RAID can slow down an object-storage cluster and it’s usually unnecessary when you use erasure coding and replication.
With EC you build pools (e.g., 4/8/12+ nodes). A pool can keep serving data even if one or more nodes are offline (depending on the EC parity) and it can tolerate multiple drive failures—staying operational first, and only later risking data loss if you exceed the tolerance. That means you can repair and heal in place without taking the service down.
With 3× cross-site replication, even a full datacenter issue can be handled by routing traffic to another location until the problem is resolved, making downtime and data loss extremely unlikely.
I can vouch for @systemfreaks , been using their S3 storage since mid of last year and really like it, especially their support, really helpful
No PayPal
why?
PayPal does not issue a valid tax invoice for its fees, which creates tax and accounting implications on our side. For this reason, we have decided not to use PayPal.
Paid with Google Pay. Status: In review. Not sure if the payment got through.
no PayPal, then no business with me.
That is ok, i respect your choice not to use other payment processors than paypal