S3-compatible · 3-2-1 off-site for your NAS

NAS Backup to S3 — the cheap off-site copy in Frankfurt

Your Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS or Unraid is the fast local copy. German S3 object storage delivers the off-site copy under the 3-2-1 rule: endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com, region de-fra, GDPR/DPA, 1 TB egress included per TB. From €2.49/TB.
  • Atitinka GDPR ir Duomenų tvarkymo sutartis
  • Duomenų centras Frankfurtas prie Maino
  • Srautas įskaičiuotas
Nuo €2.49 už TB saugyklos
Iki 90 % pigiau nei AWS, Google, Azure
Objektų saugykla – S3-suderinama
Naudokite Rclone, Veeam, Restic ir daugiau
Srautas įskaičiuotas
1 TB srauto už TB saugyklos nemokamai
3-2-1
Off-site copy
GDPR / DPA
Frankfurt DC
from €2.49
per TB/month

RAID is not a backup — your NAS needs an off-site copy

A RAID protects against a single failing disk, not against fire, theft, water damage, ransomware, accidental deletion or the loss of the whole site. The established answer is the 3-2-1 rule: 3 copies of your data, on 2 different media, 1 of them off-site (kept separate). Your Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS, Unraid or OpenMediaVault already is the fast local copy. What is missing is the external copy in another location — which is exactly what German S3 object storage is for: scalable, S3-compatible, strong read-after-write, reached via the endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com in region de-fra, at 99.999999% durability, with data that never leaves the Frankfurt facility. This page is your starting point — from here you continue to the vendor-specific guides.

NAS = local copy · German S3 = cheap off-site copy

Keep the roles cleanly separated. Your NAS delivers fast restores on-premises and protects against single-disk defects — that is the local copy. The object storage in Frankfurt delivers distance: the copy that survives when fire, water, burglary or a ransomware trojan hits the entire site. You pay for none of that with a second NAS, a tape robot or your own standby data center — only for the storage actually used, from €2.49 per TB/month. Operated by a German provider with a data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR, with no US CLOUD Act access and Schrems II safe. Since 2006, 100% green power, over 500 million files already migrated.

NAS = local copy · German S3 = cheap off-site copy

Which NAS tools speak S3?

Synology

Hyper Backup with the target "S3 Storage / S3-compatible" pushes your shares off-site to Frankfurt, Cloud Sync mirrors individual folders. Active Backup for Business protects PCs and servers onto the NAS — you then offload that repository to de-fra via Hyper Backup.

QNAP

Hybrid Backup Sync 3 (HBS 3) knows "S3 Compatible" as a target. Enter endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com, region de-fra plus access and secret key — your scheduled backup or sync job is ready.

TrueNAS

A Cloud Sync Task with the provider "S3 Compatible" and its freely settable endpoint URL binds i3 in directly — on TrueNAS CORE as well as SCALE, using rclone under the hood.

Unraid

Unraid ships no native S3; via the community apps rclone or Duplicacy you back up your shares on a schedule against the de-fra endpoint.

OpenMediaVault

The openmediavault-rclone plugin sets up an S3 remote pointing at https://de-fra.i3storage.com and runs scheduled sync jobs conveniently via cron.

In 4 steps: back up your NAS to Frankfurt

1

Create an API key

In the intercolo customer portal create an access/secret key pair. Access runs exclusively through these SigV4 keys — no password login. For separate devices or customers use a dedicated key pair and a dedicated bucket each.

2

Enter endpoint & region

In your NAS backup tool pick the target type "S3 Compatible" and set endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com and region de-fra. Keep TLS on — the certificate is valid, no need to tick "untrusted certificate".

3

Pick a bucket & schedule

Create a bucket (e.g. nas-offsite) and run the backup job on a schedule — daily and incremental, so the off-site copy stays current automatically without transferring the full dataset every night.

4

Encrypt client-side

Encrypt sensitive data before upload: with your tool's own encryption (Hyper Backup, HBS 3), with rclone crypt or with Cryptomator. The key stays on the NAS, and only unreadable ciphertext lands in storage.

Generic rclone setup against the de-fra endpoint

bash
# Create an rclone remote for intercolo i3 (S3-compatible, SigV4):
rclone config create i3 s3 \
    provider Other \
    access_key_id <ACCESS_KEY> \
    secret_access_key <SECRET_KEY> \
    endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com \
    region de-fra

# Create the bucket once:
rclone mkdir i3:nas-offsite

# Sync a NAS share as the off-site copy (3-2-1):
rclone sync /volume1/data i3:nas-offsite/data \
    --transfers 8 --checkers 16 --fast-list --progress

# Optional client-side encryption: crypt remote 'i3crypt'
# wraps i3:nas-offsite — the key stays on the NAS:
rclone sync /volume1/data i3crypt:data --progress

# Recovery — pull data back from Frankfurt:
rclone copy i3:nas-offsite/data /volume1/restore --progress

For rclone: provider Other, region de-fra. Path-style https://de-fra.i3storage.com/nas-offsite · virtual-hosted https://nas-offsite.de-fra.i3storage.com — both work.

Inclusive egress makes the real recovery predictable

A backup you cannot afford to retrieve is worthless. With many US providers every restore test costs egress fees — so people test too rarely. Here 1 TB of egress is included per booked TB of storage. You pull back individual files or whole shares and validate your recovery chain regularly without the next invoice exploding. Extra traffic is billed transparently at 3.99 EUR per TB — calculable, not surprising. This is not "zero egress" marketing but honest: you know what a restore costs before you run it.

Inclusive egress makes the real recovery predictable

No Object Lock/WORM at the storage layer — how the copy stays safe anyway

To be honest: i3 offers NO storage-side immutability — no Object Lock, no WORM, no versioning. The real anti-ransomware security here comes from the spatially separated second copy under 3-2-1: even if a trojan hits your NAS, the distance copy sits in another location in Frankfurt. Keep that copy away from production access with separate buckets and dedicated SigV4 keys per purpose, and rotate keys on suspicion. Confidentiality you establish client-side — rclone crypt, Cryptomator or your backup tool's encryption encrypt BEFORE upload; transport is additionally secured by TLS. That way no one, us included, can read the contents.

For which NAS? — the matching guide

Synology

Step by step with Hyper Backup and Cloud Sync against the de-fra endpoint, including a comparison with Synology C2. You will find all details on the Synology guide.

QNAP

Set up HBS 3 as an S3 target: job type, endpoint, client-side encryption and schedule. You will find all details on the QNAP HBS 3 guide.

TrueNAS

Cloud Sync Task with "S3 Compatible" step by step — for CORE and SCALE. You will find all details on the TrueNAS guide.

Unraid

Off-site backup via rclone or Duplicacy as a scheduled user script. You will find all details on the Unraid guide.

i3 vs. Synology C2 vs. Backblaze B2 as a NAS backup target

Synology C2 Backblaze B2 intercolo i3
Location / data residency EU selectable (Frankfurt), Synology corp. EU region selectable, US corporation Frankfurt DC, 100% DE, GDPR/DPA
S3 integration / endpoint Mainly Synology tools, limited S3 API s3.eu-central-*.backblazeb2.com https://de-fra.i3storage.com (de-fra)
NAS compatibility Chiefly Synology (Hyper Backup) Any S3-capable NAS tool Any S3-capable NAS tool
Egress model Capped depending on plan 1 TB free/day, then per GB 1 TB incl./TB, then 3.99 EUR/TB
Starting storage price List price EUR/TB List price US$/TB €2.49/TB
Support / contact Ticket Ticket, EN Direct, German, DC team
Power varies varies 100% green power

Migruojame jūsų duomenis už jus

Mūsų patirtis kalba pati už save: Sėkmingai atlikome migracijas, apimančias kelis petabaitus duomenų ir daugiau nei 500 milijonų failų.

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

Dar turite klausimų?

No. A RAID protects against a single failing disk, not against fire, theft, ransomware, accidental deletion or the loss of the whole site. Only a spatially separated, external copy under the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies, 2 media, 1 off-site) makes your data truly safe.
Any with an S3-capable backup tool: Synology (Hyper Backup, Cloud Sync), QNAP (HBS 3), TrueNAS (Cloud Sync Task), Unraid (rclone, Duplicacy) and OpenMediaVault (rclone). Everywhere you enter endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com, region de-fra and your access/secret key pair.
i3 offers no Object Lock/WORM and no versioning — we say that openly. Protection comes from spatial separation: the second copy sits in another location in Frankfurt. Use separate buckets and dedicated SigV4 keys per purpose, rotate keys on suspicion, and encrypt client-side so that compromised credentials cannot reach your distance copy.
There is no storage-side at-rest encryption; transport runs over TLS. For confidentiality you encrypt client-side — with rclone crypt, Cryptomator or your backup tool's encryption. The blocks are then encrypted before upload and the key stays on your NAS.
1 TB of egress is included per booked TB of storage, which covers regular restore tests and individual recoveries. Traffic beyond that costs a predictable 3.99 EUR per TB. Not "free", but calculable in advance.
Both: path-style https://de-fra.i3storage.com/<bucket> and virtual-hosted https://<bucket>.de-fra.i3storage.com. For rclone, endpoint https://de-fra.i3storage.com with region de-fra and provider Other is enough.
Yes. The operator is a German company, the data center is in Frankfurt, and there is a data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR. No US CLOUD Act access, Schrems II safe — your data does not leave Germany.
1 mėnesio nemokamas bandomasis laikotarpis

Išbandykite mūsų S3-suderinamas saugyklą 1 mėnesį nemokamai.