Hetzner Storage Box or a storage VPS: which one should I pick?

What is the difference between a Storage Box and a storage VPS?

A Storage Box is disk space you log in to; a storage VPS is a computer you run. Choosing between a Hetzner Storage Box or a storage VPS is less about price per terabyte, which is close, than about whether you need to execute anything on the far side. Hetzner's own documentation is plain about the box: "There is no full shell," and uploaded scripts cannot be executed.

What can a Hetzner Storage Box do?

It takes files in almost every way you could ask for, and it keeps snapshots of them. Hetzner's plan page and its access documentation, read on 2 November 2026, list:

• Protocols: FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP, Samba/CIFS, WebDAV, HTTPS, rsync over SSH, BorgBackup, restic and rclone; it can be mounted as a network drive.
• SSH: port 23 serves rsync, Borg and the other command-line tools, with a restricted set of commands such as ls, cp, mv, du, df and sha256sum; port 22 allows no interactive login.
• Borg: versions picked with --remote-path: borg-1.1, borg-1.2 (the default) or borg-1.4. restic works through its SFTP backend or through rclone.
• Snapshots: 10 on BX11, 20 on BX21, 30 on BX31 and 40 on BX41, with automated snapshots too.
• Accounts: up to 100 sub-accounts and 10 connections at once.

What it cannot do is run anything you bring. No daemon, no cron job on the box, no web interface of your own.

What can only a storage VPS do?

Everything that needs a process running next to the data. With root on a Coffervale server you can run:

• Nextcloud or Seafile, so your files have a web interface, calendars and phone sync;
• an always-on Syncthing node that keeps devices in step;
• a restic REST server, or Borg in the exact version you want, with each client key locked by borg serve --restrict-to-repository and --append-only;
• pruning and checks on the server side, scheduled by cron, so a laptop does not have to stay awake for them;
• encryption at rest you control: KVM gives your server its own kernel, so you can put LUKS on the data disk or run ZFS with native encryption, and the keys never leave you. For backups, encrypt on your own machine before upload (Borg, restic and Kopia all do it), so the server only ever holds ciphertext.

The price of that freedom is upkeep: the operating system, the SSH setup and the restore tests are yours. We take no backup of your server and keep no copy of your data anywhere else, so what sits on a Coffervale storage VPS should be one of your copies, never the only one. For the product in general, see what is a storage VPS?

How do Storage Box and storage VPS prices compare per TB?

According to Coffervale's survey of 2 November 2026, a Hetzner Storage Box cost $2.27 to $3.58 per TB a month excluding VAT, the same band as the least expensive storage VPS plans from hosts that take crypto and ask no ID ($2.22 up to the $4.00 median). The box gets cheaper per terabyte as it grows, and its sizes jump from 1 TB straight to 5 TB, so someone holding 2 TB pays for 5.

Which one fits which job?

Let the job decide, then the size.

• Backups from a few machines with Borg, restic or rsync: either works. Take the box if you never want to administer a server; take the storage VPS if you want to set the access rules yourself or pay in crypto.
• Nextcloud, Seafile or Syncthing: storage VPS only.
• A network drive for a home PC: the box is simpler, with Samba and WebDAV built in.
• 10 to 20 TB in one place: the box's BX31 and BX41, or a dedicated server; Bedrock, at 8 TB, is the largest storage VPS we sell. Past that size a dedicated storage server, a whole machine full of disks, is the better fit, and we say so plainly rather than stretch a VPS.
• No ID at signup and crypto payment: the storage VPS. No KYC: no ID document, no selfie, no card and no phone number is asked at signup; coins accepted: BTC, USDT, USDC, ETH, SOL, LTC.

The same choice against managed backup services is weighed in is a storage VPS a cheaper alternative to rsync.net or BorgBase?, and every storage VPS seller is in what is the least expensive storage VPS per TB right now?

Can I use a Storage Box and a storage VPS together?

Yes, and the pair makes a sound backup plan. Run Nextcloud or your backup server on the storage VPS, then send a nightly Borg or restic copy of it to a Storage Box with another provider. That gives you two copies in two places held by two companies, which covers a lost account as well as a lost disk. One storage VPS is one copy in one place. The 3-2-1 rule asks for three copies, on two kinds of media, with one of them off-site: a storage VPS fits as that off-site copy, next to two you keep yourself.