HexOS Holiday Sale 2025

[jonp]

To celebrate the holidays and thank our community for their continued support, we're excited to announce our HexOS Holiday Sale, starting today! Existing customers can purchase additional licenses for just $99 each, perfect for expanding your home server setup. New customers can take advantage of our special two-pack bundle for $298, with additional licenses available at the same $99 promotional price. Single licenses remain available at $199 until our 1.0 release in Q1 2026. This holiday pricing for additional licenses and the two-pack bundle is available through December 31st, so don't miss out on this opportunity to join or expand your HexOS experience.

Please note: License transfers are not permitted. All licenses are tied to the purchasing account.

Buy now from the HexOS Store!

[G-M0N3Y-2503]

It sounds like the additional licenses wouldn't really work for a buddy backup use case, because there wouldn't be much of a way to separate the systems without some kind of licence transfer. Is that correct? 

[jonp]

19 hours ago, G-M0N3Y-2503 said:

It sounds like the additional licenses wouldn't really work for a buddy backup use case, because there wouldn't be much of a way to separate the systems without some kind of licence transfer. Is that correct? 

Correct.  The additional licenses is for users that want to setup multiple systems of their own, not for buddy backups.

@Todd Miller rightly called this out as confusing.  What I meant to say is that you just can't transfer the license to another user.  You can use buddy backups (as a feature) between two systems that you own and control (licensed under one account).  Sorry for the confusion!  Carry on!

[Todd Miller]

While not a buddy backup I hope the second license can be used to build a "regular" backup NAS system.  I've already got two backups on external HDD media but they are so SLOW.

[jonp]

26 minutes ago, Todd Miller said:

While not a buddy backup I hope the second license can be used to build a "regular" backup NAS system.  I've already got two backups on external HDD media but they are so SLOW.

Absolutely. That is 100% doable. 

[oliver12]

Wait, so if I have two licenses under my account I can't put my second server at eg my parents home for a offsite backup and sync via BuddyBackup?

[G-M0N3Y-2503]

@oliver12 taking a guess, i think it would probably "work", except it would only have one account on both.
So at that point it's just your backup on offsite machine, rather than a backup to a buddies machine who also happens to be offsite. 
If you wanted to gift this machine so that your parents could have their own, you'd need to give them your account at which point they could also access the machine you have. 

[PsychoWards]

So, Buddy Backup only works for different users? I bought 2 licenses a year ago to be able to do buddy backup with myself, so that's not possible? I would need to fall back to Replication Task over SSH ? 

[jonp]

7 hours ago, oliver12 said:

Wait, so if I have two licenses under my account I can't put my second server at eg my parents home for a offsite backup and sync via BuddyBackup?

 

4 hours ago, PsychoWards said:

So, Buddy Backup only works for different users? I bought 2 licenses a year ago to be able to do buddy backup with myself, so that's not possible? I would need to fall back to Replication Task over SSH ? 

Buddy backup will definitely work with two licenses under the same account. You will be your own buddy 😉

[Todd Miller]

So If I am understanding this, if the second server is in a relatives house it is not their independent account but rather is is another server under the same login.  So I don't think we can use the term "buddy backup" unless you are saying each server can allocate an encrypted space on the other that can't be accessed.  I think that will be the terminology sticking point.  I must say when I first saw the option to buy a second $99 NAS server I myself thought I could setup up a buddy backup as well at a relatives home but wasn't sure it could be used as a full independent server by that relative because they are not going to want to go down the NAS path.  I am guessing a lot of people will have that same thought and if i am still being honest I think Eshtek realized that would be the reason many folks would go for that option.  So, let's be clear and careful about the use of the term "buddy backup".  Can it be a remote backup?  Yes.  You have already told me above that it can.  But can it be a buddy backup?  It sounds like no, not really as defined in the sales materials.  Now, as for that person who bought two accounts during the original black friday sale.  I can see them having a legit issue because I believe I have seen them say that is why they got the two accounts in other forum posts a while back.  If this is true it should have been stated then that multiple servers on one account can't be true buddy backups.  I don't really have a horse in this race because I want another server that will be my 'media available outside my home' through Plex or Jellyfin and Immich.

[jonp]

1 hour ago, Todd Miller said:

So If I am understanding this, if the second server is in a relatives house it is not their independent account but rather is is another server under the same login.  So I don't think we can use the term "buddy backup" unless you are saying each server can allocate an encrypted space on the other that can't be accessed.  I think that will be the terminology sticking point.  I must say when I first saw the option to buy a second $99 NAS server I myself thought I could setup up a buddy backup as well at a relatives home but wasn't sure it could be used as a full independent server by that relative because they are not going to want to go down the NAS path.  I am guessing a lot of people will have that same thought and if i am still being honest I think Eshtek realized that would be the reason many folks would go for that option.  So, let's be clear and careful about the use of the term "buddy backup".  Can it be a remote backup?  Yes.  You have already told me above that it can.  But can it be a buddy backup?  It sounds like no, not really as defined in the sales materials.  Now, as for that person who bought two accounts during the original black friday sale.  I can see them having a legit issue because I believe I have seen them say that is why they got the two accounts in other forum posts a while back.  If this is true it should have been stated then that multiple servers on one account can't be true buddy backups.  I don't really have a horse in this race because I want another server that will be my 'media available outside my home' through Plex or Jellyfin and Immich.

Forgive me, but I'm really confused by what you're saying, which means there is clearly a disconnect in our marketing language and understanding with customers as well and I want to get to the bottom of that.  Let's try some clarification here:

• Buddy backup is a feature that will allow two HexOS users (customers) to backup to each other's server in an encrypted fashion.
• There is no reason you cannot be your own buddy with a second license (e.g. you buy a second server license and put a server at a secondary location).
• If someone bought two licenses during black friday under two separate accounts, each account can backup to each other just the same (and if they want to merge those two accounts, we can handle that for the user).
• With this sale, however, we are not allowing someone to buy a second license to transfer to another user (as it would open the door to reselling licenses which we don't support).

I get that the term "buddy backup" may not clearly identify that you can be your own buddy, but we thought it would be fairly obvious that if you could backup to someone else on a separate account, you could also backup to yourself on the same account.  I think we could loosen the "encryption" requirement in the case of backups between two servers owned by the same account, but that's more of a technical detail than marketing.

Let me know what's still unclear or how we can do better on the language here.  Sometimes we can be a little too close to the trees to see the forest, so if you can help give us a better perspective, we'll work to improve our messaging in the marketing.  Thanks!

[Todd Miller]

I think we are mostly on the same page with your response so let me throw out some scenarios to make sure we are all clear.

1)  I was not a lifetime owner.  I bought the $199 because I want to own a NAS and am joining the Beta though pretty late.  I am now the proud owner of a HexOS NAS. and have built a machine and loaded the product.  1 license on 1 account and 1 server.

2)  I see the two server option $298 option.  That is equal to the original $99 deal plus the $199 current and long standing post black friday 2024 advertised price.  I have 2 licenses on 1 account and up to 2 servers either physical or virtual including a mix of the two.  If I don't know about the original black friday sale I simply see a (currently) full price license and a packaged reduced option for a second.

3)  I bought in at the original black friday price and want a second license for another server.  I am also 2 licenses on 1 account because there was no way to buy a second $99 black friday license on any account but the original.

4)  People with vision (not me) who bought multiple licenses.  Not sure I will get this right so please strike out what is incorrect.  Those folks would have 2 licenses on 1 account.

5)  Same as four except they bought multiple licenses on multiple accounts.  For simplicity let's call it 2 licenses on 2 account.

Assuming all these are valid (and someone exercised the options) it appears the buddy backup definition is really the hangup.  I only see one reference to the buddy backup on the HexOS.com website (and no folks, I did not do an exhaustive search looking for more information).  The site says "Buddy backups and replication  Easily transfer data between two HexOS systems. Backup your data to a friend’s remote server using a secure connection".  Since it only says systems and not licenses or accounts, I think that is a little confusing when held up against your above statement "The additional licenses is for users that want to setup multiple systems of their own, not for buddy backups.".  I am guessing the confusion may simply be how will the buddy backup be executed.  I believe TrueNAS already has ways to do backups.  As well there are lots of apps that will do it if I say I don't like the way TrueNAS does it.  So going out on a limb here I hope this backup is seup in the dashboard by identifying the second system.  I hope it is along the line of I list the second license I want to backup to and when built (of course) I do the same in reverse order listing license 1 to connect to.  I am setting aside encryption and size allocation because that is secondary to me but it must be managed somewhere.  If it's account and license in that crosslinking process that will complicate or possibly eliminate the backup buddy option.

 

I believe that is what we loyal but extremely ambitious are trying to understand.  Is backup buddy system to system, license to license or account to account.  Oh and for clarity I am thinking my userid or email represents my account and something else is my license.  The statements that the second $99 license is not for backup buddy but you can be your own backup buddy (as sad as that sounds) might just need clarification in the future like before the sale ends for those just seeing this conversation and thinking I didn't think about being my own backup buddy.  Way more than enough said and I will bow out now.

[PsychoWards]

1 system/installation requires 1 license.

And Buddy Backup is between 2 systems requiring a license each.

The owner doesn't matter all you need to have is 2 Hexos installations/servers therefor 2 licence in total and you are good to go for buddy backup.