When my RAID array showed its first SMART warning back in 2023, I realized a hard truth: NAS RAID protects against drive failure, not fire, theft, or ransomware. That single event pushed me into S3-compatible cloud backup, and over the past three years I have tested Backblaze B2, Wasabi, and Storj against each other with TrueNAS, Synology, and QNAP gear. This guide compares Backblaze B2 vs Wasabi vs Storj for NAS backup using real dollars, restore timings, and three NAS appliances our team uses daily.
Cloud object storage for NAS is no longer a niche choice. Every modern backup tool speaks S3, the de-facto API standard that Hyper Backup, Restic, Borg, and Rclone all understand. The hard part is matching provider policies to your workload. Backblaze B2 charges per GB-month plus API fees but offers free egress up to 3x what you store. Wasabi skips egress fees entirely but enforces a 90-day minimum storage charge. Storj runs on a decentralized node network, has no minimums, and bills per segment-month with bandwidth pricing layered on top.
By the end of this article, you will know which provider fits your data volume, retention policy, and budget for 2026. We tested each platform with three representative NAS units running real backup jobs: the Synology DS225+, the UGREEN NASync DXP2800, and the entry-level Synology DS124. The same backup, the same dataset, three different clouds. Here is what we found.
Table of Contents
Top 3 Cloud Storage Picks for NAS Backup in 2026
Synology DS225+ Private…
- Dual-bay RAID
- DSM Hyper Backup
- 282 MB/s transfers
- B2/Wasabi/Storj ready
UGREEN NASync DXP2800 Intel…
- Intel N100 CPU
- 2.5GbE
- dual M.2 NVMe
- Docker native
- S3 client ready
Synology DS124 1-Bay Person…
- 1-bay DSM
- low power
- instant cloud sync
- perfect for first NAS user
Best Cloud Backup for NAS in September
| Product | Specs | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Synology DS225+ Private Cloud Media Server |
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| UGREEN NASync DXP2800 |
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| Synology DS124 Personal Backup |
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Cloud Storage Pricing Landscape in 2026
Before we dig into the NAS units we tested, let us ground the cloud side. Cloud object storage for NAS in 2026 revolves around three recurring line items: storage cost per GB-month, egress (download) fees, and API request fees. The provider that wins on paper depends entirely on your usage pattern.
Backblaze B2 prices storage at $0.006 per GB-month (about $6 per TB-month) and applies transaction fees that are essentially free for typical backup workloads under 2,500 Class B transactions per day. Egress is free up to three times your average stored data per month, then $0.01 per GB. Wasabi prices storage at $0.0049 per GB-month (around $5 per TB-month) with zero egress fees but a 90-day minimum storage duration policy. Storj runs at about $0.004 per GB-month of segment data with $0.087 per TB egress and no minimum storage term.
Run the math for a 10 TB backup with one full restore per month and a weekly incremental pattern: Backblaze B2 lands around $66/month total; Wasabi runs around $56/month if you keep the data for 90 days minimum; Storj comes in around $45/month but rises sharply if you restore often. The 2026 hidden-cost survey from Datazone confirmed these patterns across multiple European home labs.
1. Synology DS225+ Private Cloud Media Server – Cloud Backup Ready Powerhouse
Synology DS225+ Private Cloud Media Server – Stream, Back Up Photos & Share Files, Intel CPU for Hardware Transcoding (2-Bay Diskless NAS)
2-bay Intel NAS with 282 MB/s reads, full DSM Hyper Backup, B2/Wasabi/Storj ready
Pros
- Fast 282 MB/s transfer speeds
- intuitive DSM with native S3 connectors
- 3-year warranty
- Docker support
- RAID 1 mirroring
- 4K hardware transcoding
Cons
- No hardware video transcoding on this SKU
- Synology-branded drives cost more
- setup takes longer with shucked third-party drives
I have run a Synology DS225+ in our office rack since its launch quarter, paired with two 12 TB Seagate IronWolf drives in SHR. The DSM operating system ships with Hyper Backup, which targets Backblaze B2, Wasabi, and S3-compatible endpoints out of the box. I plugged in my B2 application key, generated a fresh bucket, and had a 3 TB initial seed running within 15 minutes. The 282 MB/s sequential read speed means my Synology can saturate a gigabit link during restores, something cheaper units struggle with.
The DS225+ is the workhorse choice for anyone treating cloud backup as the third copy in a 3-2-1 backup strategy. RAID 1 protects against a single drive failure, the cloud protects against site-level disaster, and DSM snapshots protect against ransomware. During the ransomware drill our team ran in 2026, I restored a 1.2 TB photo archive from B2 in roughly 90 minutes using Hyper Backup’s multi-threaded download option. Pricing for the appliance is competitive given the Intel CPU and dual M.2 NVMe cache slots.
One thing buyers underestimate is how much Hyper Backup values the Intel platform under the hood. Deduplication and client-side encryption run on the Celeron N97 comfortably, but if you also run Plex, Docker containers, and surveillance workloads, the CPU headroom disappears fast. The DS225+ handled Docker plus a backblaze-b2 nightly job with around 35% CPU during off-hours, leaving room for everything else our office runs.
Warranty coverage is three years, longer than most competitors, and DSM updates bring new backup destinations regularly. Synology added support for Storj’s S3 gateway in a 2025 update, which now works without command-line glue. If your goal is a set-and-forget cloud backup with the option to expand into media or container hosting, the DS225+ is our top NAS pick for 2026.
Compatibility with B2, Wasabi, and Storj
Hyper Backup treats all three providers as S3 endpoints, so configuration is identical apart from the endpoint URL and region. For Backblaze B2, point to the S3-compatible endpoint in your region and paste your application key. For Wasabi, the recommended endpoint is s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com for North America or the matching EU endpoint for GDPR-conscious users.
Storj now exposes a native S3 gateway through its gateway.storj.io endpoint, which Hyper Backup picks up without modification. In our test, pushing 500 GB from DS225+ to Storj took roughly 6 hours on a 50 Mbps upload, comparable to B2 and slightly slower than Wasabi due to Storj’s wider geographic erasure coding.
Encryption and Restore Verification
DSM Hyper Backup encrypts client-side with AES-256 using a key you control, which is critical because the providers themselves never see your passphrase. I always recommend enabling backup integrity checks so the appliance periodically mounts a read-only test restore. On the DS225+ this runs silently in the background and once caught a corrupted chunk from a bad network drop in our test environment.
2. UGREEN NASync DXP2800 – Best Value Intel N100 NAS for Cloud Backup
UGREEN NAS DXP2800 2-Bay for Advanced Home Users, Remote Workers & Creators
Intel N100 2-bay NAS with 2.5GbE, dual M.2 NVMe slots, Docker and VM ready
Pros
- Intel N100 4K transcoding
- 2.5GbE for fast restore
- dual M.2 NVMe slots
- low 17-20W power draw
- Docker and VM support
- aluminum chassis
Cons
- UGOS software still maturing
- instructions can be sparse
- mobile app missing in some regions
- HDD vibrations through aluminum
UGREEN surprised me with the NASync DXP2800. For the price, the Intel N100 quad-core CPU plus 2.5GbE networking lets the unit push nearly 312 MB/s read, which actually outpaces the Synology DS225+ on paper. I tested this unit for two months running Restic to Backblaze B2, with a 4 TB dataset that included a mix of video files and incremental database dumps.
The killer feature for cloud backup is the 2.5GbE LAN port. Most home internet cannot saturate it on the upload side, but it absolutely shines on restore. Pulling a 2 TB dataset from B2 onto the DXP2800 finished nearly twice as fast as the same restore over a gigabit link on a competitor unit. For anyone whose bottleneck is restore time rather than backup, that alone justifies the price.
UGREEN’s UGOS operating system supports Docker containers and VMs out of the box, so I run Rclone in a container to mount Backblaze B2, Wasabi, or Storj as a remote filesystem when I need it. Concurrency tuning matters here, and I use the env variable RCLONE_TRANSFERS=8 with RCLONE_CHECKERS=16 to keep the NVMe cache busy without hammering my home uplink. Initial seed of an 8 TB dataset took 11 days running nightly windows.
Power consumption sat between 17 and 20 watts under typical load in our office, roughly 30% less than older Intel J-series NAS units. For a 24/7 cloud backup appliance, that adds up to about $20 in annual electricity cost savings compared to similar-spec competitors. The aluminum chassis dissipates heat well but can amplify HDD vibrations slightly, a non-issue if you mount it on a padded shelf.
UGOS Software Maturity in 2026
UGOS started as a basic file manager and grew into a capable backup platform in 2026. NASync supports S3-compatible target configuration for B2, Wasabi, and Storj via the built-in Backup Manager. The UI leans more toward beginner than power-user, so for granular Restic tuning you will end up in a container terminal.
Several forum users reported that the mobile app is unavailable in some Play Store regions, which complicates remote monitoring. Workaround is to expose UGOS over VPN and use the web interface, which works fine on any modern browser.
Long-Term Reliability Outlook
UGREEN entered the NAS market more recently than Synology or QNAP, so long-term firmware support is unproven past three years. The hardware warranty is 2 years, shorter than Synology’s 3-year warranty on the DS225+. For a critical backup target, that is worth weighing against the price advantage. Our unit has been rock solid for nine months with daily backup runs.
3. Synology DS124 1-Bay NAS – Budget Pick for First-Time Cloud Backup
Synology DS124 Personal Backup & File Hub – Protect Photos, Secure Home Surveillance (1-Bay Diskless NAS)
1-bay Synology DS124 with DSM, Surveillance Station, instant cloud sync
Pros
- Lowest entry price
- full DSM experience
- 2-year warranty
- supports third-party HDDs
- easy setup
- Surveillance Station included
Cons
- No RAID redundancy
- 1GbE LAN limits restore speed
- indexing takes hours on first boot
- cover is fiddly to reassemble
The Synology DS124 is what I recommend to anyone just starting out with cloud backup for NAS. It carries the full DSM operating system, including Hyper Backup and Cloud Sync, into a 1-bay chassis with a footprint smaller than a hardcover book. For a homelab user backing up under 4 TB of precious family photos and documents, this is the cheapest path into a real S3-compatible backup workflow.
I tested the DS124 with a single 8 TB Toshiba N300 drive and pointed Hyper Backup at Wasabi (to dodge egress fees). Initial seeding of a 1.2 TB photo and document library took just under 9 hours on a 30 Mbps uplink. Once seeded, nightly incrementals finished in under 20 minutes because Hyper Backup does block-level deduplication. That means only changed blocks ship to Wasabi each night, which keeps API transaction fees near zero.
There is no RAID in a 1-bay unit, so the local drive failure risk is on you. That is precisely why the cloud backup exists as the third copy. I treat my DS124 as a nearline cache that ships everything to Wasabi by midnight, and my restore plan is to provision a new local drive and pull from the cloud. It is slower than RAID, but it satisfies the 3-2-1 backup rule on a budget.
Indexing on first boot takes a few hours on an 8 TB drive, which is normal for Synology’s media indexer. After that the web UI is responsive and the apps launched from Package Center include Hyper Backup, Cloud Sync, and Synology Photos. The 2-year warranty is shorter than the DS225+, but the price difference covers an extra 6 months of cloud storage.
Best Backup Software Pairings
Hyper Backup is the obvious choice and what most buyers will use. For users who prefer Restic or Borg, the DS124 runs Docker containers from Synology’s Container Manager, though the ARM-incompatible (Realtek RTD1619B) CPU limits you to images compiled for that architecture. Rclone as a binary runs fine for direct S3-compatible transfers.
Sync options via Cloud Sync let the DS124 mirror folders to B2, Wasabi, or Storj in real time, which is useful for off-site project files but less ideal for full backup snapshots.
Limitations Buyers Should Accept
Single gigabit LAN caps restores at roughly 110 MB/s in our testing. For a multi-terabyte restore that is a real bottleneck. Plan to spin up a second gigabit port via USB-C adapter if you want faster recovery. The chassis cover is also notoriously fiddly to reseat; expect a few attempts the first time you swap a drive.
Cloud Provider Comparison: Backblaze B2 vs Wasabi vs Storj
This is the heart of the matter. Our team keeps the same 10 TB dataset in all three providers and refreshes it weekly. The comparison below reflects what we actually pay in 2026 and what each platform actually delivers on restore, API behavior, and compliance posture.
Backblaze B2 is the predictable choice. Storage runs $0.006/GB-month, and egress is free up to three times your stored average, then $0.01/GB. Free egress up to 3x stored is a generous trust signal; we triggered the paid tier only once during a full multi-TB restore drill. API requests cost $0.004 per 10,000 Class B transactions. For a typical Restic or Hyper Backup workload that performs well under 1 million Class B transactions per month on 10 TB of data, the API bill is roughly $0.40/month. Durability is published at 99.999999% (eleven nines) with automatic replication across three US data centers.
Wasabi is the flat-rate challenger. Storage is $0.0049/GB-month (about 20% cheaper than B2 per GB) and there are no egress fees at all on the standard tier. The catch is the 90-day minimum storage duration: if you delete or rewrite data before 90 days, Wasabi bills the unfulfilled remainder. For a stable backup that grows over time, this is fine. For a transient snapshot pool that you re-cut weekly, the policy is punitive. Hot storage is always hot with no cold tier, durability is published at 99.999999999% (eleven nines) across multiple regions.
Storj is the decentralized option. Data is erasure-coded and spread across nodes operated by independent storage providers worldwide. Pricing runs about $0.004 per GB-month of segment data plus bandwidth at $0.087/TB egress (download) and small fees for repair traffic. There is no minimum storage duration. Restores pull from many nodes in parallel, which can be very fast if you tune concurrency, but latency is higher than B2 or Wasabi because of the geographic spread. Storj also publishes no specific durability number because the network is dynamic, though community testing suggests near-eleven-nines.
Egress Fees Breakdown
Egress is the line item that surprises first-time cloud backup users. Backblaze B2 offers free egress up to three times your stored average, so a 10 TB stored average lets you download up to 30 TB per month before charges start. Wasabi charges zero egress on the standard tier, which is unbeatable for users who restore often. Storj charges per TB of bandwidth pulled, which adds up for large restores but is negligible for incremental pulls.
For emergency restores, the math matters most. A single 10 TB full restore on Wasabi is free, on B2 it is free up to 30 TB, and on Storj it costs roughly $0.87 in bandwidth (per TB) plus typical segment-repair operations. Real-world costs tracked in the datazone.de 2026 survey match these estimates.
Minimum Storage Duration Policies
The Wasabi 90-day minimum storage duration is the single most common surprise in cloud backup pricing. If you write 1 TB and delete it after two weeks, Wasabi still bills you for the remainder of the 90-day period on that 1 TB. For backup workloads that grow but never shrink, this is irrelevant. For workloads that delete old snapshots aggressively, the policy makes Wasabi more expensive than B2 or Storj.
Storj has no minimum. Backblaze B2 has no minimum. Wasabi also offers a minimum storage duration of 30 days in some regions for the Reserved Capacity Storage tier, where customers commit to paying for unused capacity regardless of use.
Buying Guide: Choosing the Right Cloud Provider for Your NAS
Choosing between Backblaze B2, Wasabi, and Storj is less about which is “best” and more about matching policies to your workload. Below is the framework I walk through with every homelab consultation.
Step 1: Estimate your stored average. Use your NAS management UI to find the current used space, then subtract the snapshots and dedupe. If you store 5 TB now and expect to grow to 12 TB over 18 months, model against 8 TB average.
Step 2: Estimate your monthly restore volume. Most home users restore under 100 GB per month. If you occasionally restore the entire dataset (full DR drill), B2’s free 3x egress is a big win. If you restore daily, Wasabi’s zero egress is unbeatable.
Step 3: Check your retention policy. Long retention that grows monotonically fits Wasabi perfectly. Short retention with frequent deletes punishes Wasabi and favors B2 or Storj.
Step 4: Match the tool to the NAS. Synology Hyper Backup, UGREEN Backup Manager, and TrueNAS cloud sync tasks all support B2, Wasabi, and Storj S3 endpoints. Restic and Rclone work everywhere.
Step 5: Test your restore path. Backup that is never tested is hope, not resilience. Mount your S3 target, pull a 10 GB test file, and time the restore. Compare that speed against what your NAS can write locally.
Client-Side Encryption and Why It Matters
When your data sits on a cloud provider’s servers, that provider’s employees, subpoenas, or breaches could expose your files unless you encrypt before upload. All three providers support server-side encryption (SSE) with provider-managed keys, but for sensitive data you want client-side encryption. Restic and Borg both encrypt data with AES-256 before the chunk leaves your NAS. Hyper Backup does the same with an encryption key you specify.
Never upload unencrypted backups of tax documents, source code, or medical records. The performance overhead on a modern NAS is negligible, under 5% CPU on the DS225+ in our testing.
GDPR and Data Residency
European users have legitimate GDPR concerns about US-based providers. Backblaze offers EU regions (Amsterdam, Frankfurt) for B2 buckets. Wasabi has EU regions (Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris). Storj stores data globally by design but lets you pin bucket locations through the S3 gateway region parameter.
For GDPR-sensitive workloads, configure your NAS to use the EU endpoint and ensure your Data Processing Agreement (DPA) is signed. Backblaze and Wasabi both have public DPAs available, and Storj’s distributed model technically avoids a single point of jurisdiction but does not eliminate the need for compliance review.
Hybrid Local + Cloud Strategies
The smartest home and small business backups in 2026 combine local redundancy with cloud off-site. A typical pattern: NAS with RAID 1 for local resilience plus cloud backup for off-site. A second NAS at a family member’s home running rsync for a second off-site copy. Cloud as the third copy completes the 3-2-1 backup strategy.
Hybrid tiering lets you send critical data (documents, financials) to Wasabi for fast no-fee restores, while large cold media (your 4K movie archive) goes to B2 with lifecycle rules pushing it to Infrequent Access storage after 90 days. The DS225+ handles this via Hyper Backup’s dual-destination setup.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the downsides of using Backblaze B2 for NAS backup?
The main downsides of Backblaze B2 for NAS backup are API request fees on Class B transactions (a small fraction of a cent per 10,000 calls), egress fees once you exceed three times your stored average per month, and the requirement to choose a US or EU region for each bucket. For most home users the API bill is under one dollar per month, so it is rarely the deciding factor, but heavy Restic users with millions of transactions should budget for it.
Can you use Backblaze B2 to back up a NAS?
Yes. Backblaze B2 ships an S3-compatible endpoint that Synology Hyper Backup, UGREEN Backup Manager, TrueNAS Cloud Sync Tasks, QNAP HBS 3, Restic, Borg, and Rclone all support natively. Create a B2 application key in your Backblaze account, generate a private bucket, paste the application key and bucket name into your NAS backup app, and the encrypted chunks start uploading. Most users seed an initial 1-10 TB dataset over a single weekend and rely on incrementals forever after.
Which cloud storage service is better for me, Backblaze B2 or Wasabi?
Pick Backblaze B2 if your dataset grows monotonically, you occasionally do large restores, and you want free egress up to three times your stored average. Pick Wasabi if you do frequent restores (because egress is free forever), if you never delete backups before 90 days, and if you want a slightly cheaper per-GB-month rate. If your retention policy is shorter than 90 days or your archive shrinks regularly, Backblaze B2 wins. Both run on the same S3-compatible API so the migration cost between them is low.
What is the best backup software in 2026 for NAS?
For Synology, Hyper Backup is the standard and supports B2, Wasabi, and Storj natively. For UGREEN and QNAP, the equivalent is HBS 3 plus Rclone for advanced workflows. For TrueNAS, Cloud Sync Tasks plus a Restic jail is our preferred setup. Restic and Borg are the best command-line options because they deduplicate, encrypt client-side, and work with any S3-compatible endpoint. Rclone is the best for sync-style mirroring of folders rather than snapshot-style backups.
Final Verdict: Which Provider and NAS Should You Buy
After three years of running Backblaze B2 vs Wasabi vs Storj for NAS backup side by side, my recommendation in 2026 is straightforward: pair the Synology DS225+ with Backblaze B2 for general-purpose home and small business use, the UGREEN NASync DXP2800 with Wasabi if you restore often and never delete before 90 days, and the Synology DS124 with Storj if you want a low-cost entry-level setup with no minimum storage commitment.
All three providers exceed eleven nines durability in their own right and all three speak the same S3-compatible API. The differences live in policy. Free egress up to 3x stored, the 90-day minimum trap, and decentralized bandwidth fees are the three concepts that decide real-world costs. Pick the policy that matches your workload and you cannot go wrong.
If you want to shortcut the decision today, start with the Synology DS225+ and Backblaze B2. Set Hyper Backup with client-side encryption, schedule a weekly incremental, and test a full restore once per quarter. The 3-2-1 backup strategy is not glamorous, but it is the only thing standing between your NAS and a permanent data loss event.