Quick answer
Storage VPS or storage dedicated server: which one should I rent?
Rent a storage VPS for up to about 10 TB; rent a storage dedicated server for tens of terabytes, whole drives and your own RAID. A storage VPS shares one array with other customers. On 2 November 2026, a Basalthold storage dedicated server with 24 TB raw cost $110.99 per 30 days, paid in crypto with no KYC.
What is the difference between a storage VPS and a storage server?
| Storage VPS | Storage dedicated server (Basalthold hold) | |
|---|---|---|
| What you rent | A virtual machine with a large virtual disk | A whole machine with its own hard drives |
| Who else uses the disks | Other customers on the same array | Nobody: the drives are yours alone |
| RAID and disk layout | Chosen by the host, hidden from you | Yours: ZFS, mdadm or single disks |
| Drive health (SMART) | Not visible from inside the VM | Read it yourself with smartctl |
| Size in the offers we read | 300 GB to 10 TB | 24 to 160 TB raw |
| Entry price | A few dollars a month | $110.99 per 30 days |
| Price per TB | $5.00 on BuyVM slabs | $3.50/TB raw on Hold 160 |
| Processor | Shared virtual cores | Physical cores: 6 cores / 12 threads on Hold 24 |
| Setup | Varies by host | 72 hours at the most after your payment is confirmed |
Prices checked on
Why does a shared array matter for storage?
On a storage VPS, your backups share spindles with strangers. Hard drives handle few random operations at once. When a neighbour runs a heavy job, your restore slows, and you cannot see why.
Three more limits follow from the virtual disk:
- No drive health data. SMART counters stay on the host. You learn about a dying drive only if the host tells you.
- No say on redundancy. The host picks the RAID level and the rebuild policy.
- ZFS sees one disk. It still detects damage through checksums, but a repair needs a second copy of each block.
On a whole server, every drive is visible and the layout is yours. Parity against mirrors is weighed in RAID 6 or RAID 10: which is better for a rented storage server?
What do storage VPS offers look like?
Small, cheap and sold by the slice. Three data points:
- BuyVM Block Storage Slabs: $1.25 per 256 GB, so $5.00 per TB and $50.00 for the largest 10 TB slab. A slab attaches to a BuyVM VPS, and BuyVM takes crypto.
- Contabo Storage VPS: five plans from 300 GB to 1.4 TB of SSD. Our survey found no crypto option at Contabo.
- Buyers on LowEndTalk: in July 2025, one asked for a 1 to 2 TB storage VPS for backups, budget about $18 a year per TB, crypto preferred.
HostHatch and Servarica also sell storage VPS, but their pages could not be read reliably, so they are not priced here. For other services that take coins, see Which cloud storage can I pay for with crypto?
When does a storage dedicated server cost less?
Up to 10 TB, a storage VPS costs less. From about 24 TB up, a whole server matches its price per TB and gives you the drives. Hold 24 lists at $4.62/TB raw, near a BuyVM slab's $5.00. Hold 160 drops to $3.50/TB.
Compare like with like. A slab is already redundant on the host's array. On a hold, you spend some raw space on parity: a mirror halves Hold 24, while RAIDZ2 keeps 80% of Hold 160.
The wider market follows the same curve. Across the 23 storage-server sellers Basalthold read on 2 November 2026, plans of 16 TB or more listed at a median $5.12 per raw TB. At 144 TB the median fell to $2.14. The full study is in How much does a rented storage server cost per TB per month?
What can a whole server run that a storage VPS cannot?
Anything that wants real drives, real memory or the whole box:
- ZFS with all its parts: RAIDZ across physical drives, scrubs that repair, and a large memory cache. Hold 100 and Hold 160 have 128 GB DDR4 ECC; sizing is in How much RAM does ZFS need for a 100 TB pool?
- Proxmox Backup Server as the system, with its datastore on the pool.
- Encryption at rest that you control: You can encrypt every data drive with LUKS or ZFS native encryption; the keys stay with you and nobody on the team ever asks for them.
- Several services at once: an S3 gateway, Nextcloud and backup targets on one machine, with no shared vCPU.
What a hold lacks: There is no IPMI or KVM-over-IP access for customers; reboots and reinstalls you request in the dashboard are carried out by the team. Every hold is on the pricing page.
What else do people ask about storage VPS and storage servers?
Is a storage VPS enough for backups?
For a few terabytes, yes, if you keep another copy elsewhere. The host controls the array, so add client-side encryption and test restores.
Can I run ZFS on a storage VPS?
On its virtual disk, yes. With one disk, ZFS detects damage but repairs it only if you store extra copies of each block. RAIDZ needs several drives, which a storage server gives you.
Can I pay for a storage VPS with crypto?
At some hosts. BuyVM takes crypto for its VPS and slabs. Basalthold takes BTC, USDT, USDC, ETH, SOL, LTC for storage servers, with no KYC.
What is the smallest Basalthold hold?
Hold 24: Intel Xeon E-2176G (6 cores / 12 threads), 32 GB DDR4 ECC, 2 × 12 TB hard drives (24 TB raw) plus 480 GB SSD for the system, 1 Gbit/s port with 40 TB of traffic per 30 days, 1 IPv4 and an IPv6 /64. It costs $110.99 per 30 days.
Do I share anything on a hold?
No hardware. Every drive, the processor and the memory belong to your machine alone: no other customer stores data on them. The datacenter network and power are shared, as with any server.
Sources (4)
- Block Storage Slabs buyvm.net/block-storage-slabs — BuyVM (read 2026-11-02)
- Storage VPS contabo.com/en/storage-vps — Contabo (read 2026-11-02)
- Looking for storage VPS 1-2 tb hdd budget is <$25 lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/4482802 — LowEndTalk (2025-07-29)
- RAIDZ — OpenZFS (read 2026-11-02)