S3-compatible · Frankfurt DC · 100% green power

The honest S3 alternative — hosted in Germany

S3-compatible object storage in our Frankfurt data center – from €2.49/TB/month, 1 TB egress included per stored TB, GDPR-compliant with a signed DPA. No CLOUD Act exposure, no egress trap, no hidden API fees. Swap the endpoint, migrate, done.

intercolo vs. US-Clouds
Andmekeskus Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, DE
GDPR / DPA Art. 28
Liiklus kaasas 1 TB / TB
Alates €2.49 TB salvestuse kohta
S3 (SigV4)
fully compatible
GDPR / DPA
Art. 28
1 TB egress
included per TB

Speak S3 — without booking US law and egress roulette

AWS S3, Wasabi and Backblaze are US providers – their parent companies fall under the CLOUD Act regardless of the region your buckets physically sit in. On top of that come egress models that make your monthly bill unpredictable the moment you actually read data back. intercolo speaks the exact same S3 API with SigV4 signing, but stores your objects exclusively in our Frankfurt data center, provides a DPA under Art. 28 GDPR, and bills egress transparently: 1 TB included per stored TB. Your tooling stays put – Veeam, Restic, rclone, s3cmd, the AWS SDKs – you only swap the endpoint to https://de-fra.i3storage.com with region de-fra.

AWS S3 vs. Wasabi vs. Backblaze B2 vs. intercolo – honestly compared

AWS S3 Wasabi Backblaze B2 intercolo
Location / operator USA / global USA USA Frankfurt, DE
GDPR & DPA CLOUD Act CLOUD Act CLOUD Act DPA / Art. 28
Egress model per GB billed ≤ storage, else throttled 3× storage free, then per GB 1 TB free/TB, +3.99€/TB
Minimum storage duration none 90 days none none
Durability 99.999999999% 99.999999999% 99.999999999% 99.999999%
Support paid tiers ticket (EN) ticket (EN) direct, DE/EN
Price / TB / month ~21€/TB + egress ~6€/TB ~6€/TB €2.49/TB

Honest about egress: "included" means predictable, not free

We don't promise zero-egress – others do, then quietly throttle you at fair-use limits or bill every read-back GB individually. At intercolo you get 1 TB egress included per stored TB. Pull more than that and you pay a predictable 3.99 €/TB – transparent, no surprises on the invoice, no throttling. For backup and archive workloads that are rarely read back, the included allowance usually covers you comfortably, including regular restore tests. For delivery-heavy workloads you put our CDN (PoPs across the DACH region and Europe) in front and keep egress costs low.

Schrems II & data sovereignty: why the region alone isn't enough

After the CJEU's Schrems II ruling, transferring personal data to providers subject to US law is legally fraught – even when the data sits in an EU region. The CLOUD Act obliges US companies to hand over data regardless of where it is stored. A DPA and an EU region do not fully remove that residual risk. intercolo is a German operator with a German contracting party: your data processing happens exclusively in the Frankfurt data center, under German and European law, with no parent company in the US legal sphere. That removes the need for standard contractual clauses, transfer impact assessments and CLOUD Act analysis for this part of your infrastructure.

Move in minutes – one rclone command, zero downtime

You don't rewrite a single application. Create a bucket and an API key pair with us, enter the endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com with region de-fra, and mirror your objects with rclone directly bucket-to-bucket. rclone verifies checksums, transfers only deltas, and runs parallelized across many streams. Your source stays in production throughout the migration – you only cut the endpoint over in your app once the sync has fully completed. Want client-side encryption? Put rclone crypt in front: your data is encrypted before it ever reaches our storage – the key never leaves your side.

Move in minutes – one rclone command, zero downtime

rclone migration from AWS S3 to intercolo

bash
# 1) Create the intercolo remote (S3-compatible, SigV4)
rclone config create intercolo s3 \
  provider=Other \
  endpoint=https://de-fra.i3storage.com \
  region=de-fra \
  access_key_id=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY \
  secret_access_key=YOUR_SECRET_KEY

# 2) Mirror objects from AWS straight to Frankfurt
rclone sync aws-s3:my-bucket intercolo:my-bucket \
  --checksum --transfers 16 --fast-list --progress

# 3) Optional: encrypt client-side (rclone crypt)
rclone config create secure crypt \
  remote=intercolo:my-bucket \
  password=YOUR_CRYPT_PASSWORD
rclone sync /local/data secure:

# Quick test with the AWS CLI against the same endpoint
aws s3 ls --endpoint-url https://de-fra.i3storage.com

Endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com, region de-fra. The crypt layer encrypts client-side before upload – the storage only ever sees ciphertext.

Your tooling stays – only the endpoint changes

Veeam Backup & Replication

As an S3-compatible object storage repository (type "S3 Compatible", not "Amazon S3"). Service point https://de-fra.i3storage.com, region de-fra, set keys, pick a bucket – you cover immutability as the second copy in a 3-2-1 design, not on the storage side.

Restic

restic -r s3:https://de-fra.i3storage.com/my-bucket init – Restic encrypts client-side and deduplicates. Ideal for incremental, encrypted backups with no server-side dependencies.

rclone

Copy, sync, mount. Buckets can be mounted as a drive via rclone mount; rclone crypt gives transparent client-side encryption on top of TLS transfer.

s3cmd & AWS CLI / SDKs

aws s3 ls --endpoint-url https://de-fra.i3storage.com works unchanged. SigV4 is the default, and the AWS SDKs (boto3, aws-sdk-js …) talk to the endpoint directly – just set endpoint_url and region_name.

Nextcloud, s3fs & Cyberduck

Nextcloud as primary object store, s3fs for POSIX mounts, Cyberduck or Mountain Duck for GUI access – over IPv4 and IPv6, with strong read-after-write built in.

Migrated in four steps

1

1 — Create bucket & API keys

Create a bucket and an API key pair (access key + secret). Access runs exclusively through these SigV4 keys and optional presigned URLs – no public buckets, no guesswork.

2

2 — Enter the endpoint

Enter https://de-fra.i3storage.com with region de-fra into your tool. One line in the config – the S3 API stays identical, SigV4 is the default.

3

3 — Migrate the data

Mirror your objects straight from the old provider with rclone sync. Checksum-based, parallelized, with no downtime for the running source.

4

4 — Cut over & optionally add CDN

Cut the endpoint over in your app once the sync completes. For delivery-heavy assets, put our CDN (DACH region and Europe) in front of the bucket to keep egress low.

Access via SigV4 keys, presigned URLs and client-side encryption

Instead of bucket policies, ACLs or IP filters, intercolo uses a lean, controlled access model: every request is authenticated via API keys with SigV4 signing, and every transfer runs over TLS. For time-limited, shareable downloads you generate presigned URLs without handing out your keys – the URL expires automatically. Rotate keys deliberately by issuing a dedicated key pair per application or per project. And because encryption at rest is deliberately not done on the storage side, you encrypt client-side with rclone crypt, Restic or Cryptomator: the key stays with you, our storage only ever sees ciphertext. No object lock, no versioning, no audit logs – but a model you hold entirely in your own hands.

Access via SigV4 keys, presigned URLs and client-side encryption

Which workloads this storage fits

Backup & archive

Durable storage for Veeam, Restic or Duplicati. Rarely read-back data sits here cheaply, and the included egress allowance of 1 TB per stored TB covers regular restore tests – you model immutability cleanly as the second copy in a 3-2-1 design.

Static assets & media

Images, videos and downloads live straight in the bucket and are delivered through our CDN (PoPs across the DACH region and Europe). Reachable over IPv4 and IPv6, with strong read-after-write for freshly written objects.

Nextcloud & file sharing

As a primary object store for Nextcloud or as an s3fs mount for teams that share files GDPR-compliant from the Frankfurt data center – without the data ever leaving the German legal sphere.

App & data pipelines

S3-compatible storage for your own applications, ETL flows and analytics exports. After setting endpoint_url and region_name, the AWS SDKs (boto3, aws-sdk-js …) write straight against https://de-fra.i3storage.com.

Migreerme teie andmed teie eest

Meie kogemus räägib enda eest: Oleme edukalt teostanud migratsioone, mis hõlmasid mitut petabaiti andmeid ja üle 500 miljoni faili.

500M+
files migrated
Petabytes
of data migrated
since 2006
in business

Kas teil on veel küsimusi?

Yes. We speak the S3 API with SigV4 authentication. Veeam, Restic, rclone, s3cmd, the AWS CLI and the AWS SDKs (boto3, aws-sdk-js …) all work unchanged after a pure endpoint switch to https://de-fra.i3storage.com with region de-fra.
No – and we say so openly on purpose. Per stored TB you get 1 TB of egress included, predictable and without throttling. Pull more and you pay a transparent 3.99 €/TB. No zero-egress promise with a fair-use trap, just a number you can plan with.
Both are US companies and as such fall under the CLOUD Act – a residual risk that neither an EU region nor a DPA fully removes (see Schrems II). With intercolo your data processing happens exclusively in the Frankfurt data center with a German operator, under a DPA per Art. 28 GDPR.
No – and we don't advertise it. No object lock, no versioning, no server-side encryption at rest. You handle immutability cleanly as the second copy in a 3-2-1 design; you handle encryption client-side with rclone crypt, Restic or Cryptomator so data is encrypted before upload. Transport is always TLS-encrypted.
Access runs exclusively through API keys with SigV4 signing. For time-limited, shareable downloads you generate presigned URLs without handing out your keys. Access stays controlled even without bucket policies, ACLs or IP whitelisting – issue a dedicated key pair per application so you can rotate deliberately.
Setup is done in minutes: create a bucket and keys, enter the endpoint, start rclone sync. The pure transfer time depends on data volume and connectivity, but runs checksum-based and parallelized. Your source stays in production throughout – you only cut over once the sync fully completes.
Storage starts from €2.49/TB/month, including 1 TB egress per stored TB. There is no minimum storage duration like Wasabi's and no hidden API request fees – you pay predictably by stored volume, with additional egress billed transparently at 3.99 €/TB.
Yes. The same S3-compatible storage can be mounted via s3fs or rclone, used as a Veeam or Restic backup target, and delivered through our CDN (PoPs across the DACH region and Europe). One tier, multiple use cases – over IPv4 and IPv6, with strong read-after-write.
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