Prioritizing Buddy Backup over standard Cloud Backup ?

[zavock]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been thinking about the roadmap lately and I’m a bit confused by the focus on Buddy Backup over "standard" Cloud Backup (Backblaze B2, S3, etc.) with proper snapshot management.

I get that Buddy Backup is the "cool" feature that makes HexOS different from every other NAS OS out there, but I’m struggling to see the logic in prioritizing it right now. HexOS is still brand new, and the user base is obviously still small. Most of us don't actually have "buddies" running HexOS yet, so for the average user today, that feature isn't very useful yet.

On the other hand, almost everyone needs a reliable way to get their data off-site to a professional provider immediately. Having a solid, classic cloud backup integration feels like a "must-have" for any NAS, whereas Buddy Backup feels like something that becomes great once the community is much larger.

I feel like the majority of us would get way more value out of a standard cloud backup feature in the short term even if I agree that buddy backup is the way to go mid-long term.

Am I the only one who feels this way? I’d love to hear what you guys think—maybe I’m missing something about why this is being pushed so hard early on ?

Big shoutout to the dev team, congrats for 1.0 and keep up the great work !

[G-M0N3Y-2503]

I think the reasoning is, if you're paying for cloud storage and happy with it, then you probably wouldn't bother with a NAS. Realistically, cloud alone is probably enough for most people.

So I think they are targeting people who want to own their own data, so "buddy" back up is probably the easiest. 

Marketing aside, it's really just a 2nd license to HexOS you need, the hardware and off-site could be a VM in the cloud if you wanted. 

[zavock]

I get that, but I think a NAS is about much more than just avoiding the cloud. For me, it's about performance and local services that a cloud-only setup can't handle.

I need local storage for things like editing video files directly off the NAS, running Home Assistant, storing security camera footage, and using Cloudflare Zero Trust to access my setup remotely.

That said, I still need a 'Plan B' for my most critical data (like 300GB of Immich and Nextcloud files). This is where the Buddy Backup/VM argument doesn't really work for me. At $6/TB on Backblaze B2, my offsite backup costs next to nothing. Renting a VM with enough storage to act as a Buddy node would be significantly more expensive, plus you have to factor in the additional HexOS license and the time spent managing the VM.

To me, standard Cloud Backup is just the cheapest and most reliable way to protect important data. It’s also arguably more secure and durable than a friend's house or a DIY VM.

But I know we all have a different usage for our NAS, so I'm curious to see how others are planning to handle this.