BuyVM Alternatives in 2026: 3 Ways to Replace Slab Storage

BuyVM sells extra storage for $5 a terabyte. That price only helps if you can still click the order button and if the disk you already own stays online.

A lot of people hit one of two problems. The order page says out of stock, or the disk they already attached goes quiet and no one warns them. This page shows three real ways to replace that storage when either thing happens. It does not rank hosts. It matches the job you actually have.

What a BuyVM slab actually is

A slab is an extra hard drive you attach to a BuyVM server. The official price is $1.25 for every 256 GB, which works out to $5 per usable terabyte. You can attach up to eight of them to one server, and each one can be as large as 10 TB. The catch is that the extra drive and the server have to sit in the same data center. Locations listed on the site are Las Vegas, New York, Miami, and Luxembourg.

The server itself is small and cheap. The big storage lives on the slab. Bandwidth on the server is unmetered, which means you do not get a surprise bill for transferring a lot of data. That combination is why people like the setup when it works. The disk is attached over a fast internal fabric, so it feels closer to a local drive than a normal network share, according to the official description. You still treat it as one disk that can fail.

The three paths that replace it

You do not need one “best” alternative. You need the path that matches the problem you have right now. The cheap slab price is only useful if two things are true: you can still order the disk, and the disk you already have stays online. When either of those is false, one of the paths below is the practical exit.

You want something like a slab and you need to order it today.
Use a storage VPS from HostHatch or GreenCloudVPS. These hosts sell large disks you can order without waiting for BuyVM stock. The HostHatch page has a longer table if you also care about price per gigabyte of fast storage.

You care more about a second copy than about the lowest sticker.
Pair a small cheap VPS with Backblaze B2. B2 costs $6.95 per terabyte per month. You get free downloads up to three times the amount you store, then $0.01 per GB after that. The first 10 GB is free. This is not a live disk you attach; it is cloud object storage.

You only need a cheap place to keep backups, not a live disk.
Use a Hetzner Storage Box. The BX21 plan is about €10.90 for 5 TB excluding VAT. Traffic is unlimited. It uses normal file protocols (FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and others). You cannot attach it as an extra hard drive the way you attach a BuyVM slab.

You are building many terabytes and you already know ZFS.
Buy a dedicated server from OVH ECO or SoYouStart and run a mirror yourself. You own the RAID and the monitoring.

Your current slab is healthy and the location still has stock.
Stay. Watch it and keep a second copy somewhere else. $5 a terabyte plus unmetered bandwidth is still hard to beat when the order button works and the disk stays up.

What BuyVM does well, and what actually breaks

BuyVM does a few things well. The bandwidth is unmetered. You can buy a DDoS-filtered IP for $3 a month. People on the forums still like the operator. And the slab price itself is low when you can buy one. You can also detach a slab and attach it to a different server in the same data center without rebooting, according to the official page.

What breaks is real. People on LowEndTalk have written about disks that fail without a clear warning and about outages that last more than a day. In one 2025 Miami incident a storage cluster had a double drive failure. Most of the data was eventually recovered on a new node, but some people restored from their own backups instead of waiting. Other reports mention power or switch problems that took slabs offline for hours. The fair reading is not “every slab dies.” Most of them keep running. Some fail quietly. The practical rule is simple: watch the disk and keep a second copy. One slab is not a backup plan.

Stock is the other everyday problem. The order form often shows “Out of Stock.” In September 2026 the form also showed a banner that said the plan was available on Cloudzy instead. The old public stock page no longer works. There is no published restock calendar. The only reliable check is the order form itself. Small batches appear and disappear quickly, which is why people run notifiers.

The operator announced on LowEndTalk in early 2025 that BuyVM had been acquired by Cloudzy. BuyVM’s own public pages had not restated the full details as of October 2026. You can see the Cloudzy banner when stock is gone. Confirm anything about ownership or a possible Luxembourg move on the day you order.

How to check stock right now

Open the BuyVM slab or server order page. If every location says out of stock and a Cloudzy banner appears, that is the current state. Do not plan a project around a restock date that no one has published. Check the form, or pick one of the three paths below. If you still want to stay with BuyVM, bookmark the order page and watch for inventory.

Path A — a storage VPS you can order today

HostHatch sells Storage VMs that start around $5 a month for 1 TB (1 virtual CPU, 1 GB of memory, and roughly 2.5 TB of bandwidth on the small plans). Larger sizes cost more: about $20 for 5 TB and about $38 for 10 TB. These are self-managed servers that use enterprise spinning disks. They are built for large archives and backups. Bandwidth is generous compared with the disk size, but it is not the same unlimited promise as BuyVM. Popular cities sell out.

GreenCloudVPS prices additional storage near $5 per terabyte per month. Their Storage KVM plans are often sold on yearly billing. Some locations list hardware RAID-10 on ordinary hard drives and 10 Gbps ports. Stock changes by city, and extra disks depend on what the server has free.

Strength: You can usually place the order today and get a large disk without waiting for BuyVM.
Red flag: Bandwidth is often capped. The disk is still one failure domain unless you add your own second copy.
Choose this if: You want something close to the slab model and the BuyVM button is dead.

These storage VPS plans are the closest everyday replacement when the only problem is stock. They are not identical. You lose the fully unmetered bandwidth and the hot detach/reattach story. You gain the ability to order today.

The longer price-per-gigabyte table lives on the HostHatch page. This page only needs the short version. Contabo’s high-memory plans are a different product; the variance story is on the Contabo alternatives page.

Path B — a small VPS plus Backblaze B2

Older forum posts said B2 was “only $1 more than BuyVM.” That math is old. Official B2 pricing in October 2026 is $6.95 per terabyte per month (it went up from $6 earlier in the year). You get free downloads equal to three times the average amount you store. After that the rate is $0.01 per GB. The first 10 GB is free. There is no minimum time you have to keep a file.

A practical setup is any small VPS that is actually in stock, plus B2 for the bulk of the data. The sticker gap versus a healthy BuyVM slab is about $1.95 per terabyte. For normal backup or media use the free download allowance often shrinks the real difference. If you download the whole dataset every month the gap gets larger. Some people put a CDN in front of B2 so extra downloads stay free.

Strength: The data lives in a completely different place. You are not relying on one storage fabric.
Red flag: B2 is object storage. You cannot mount it as a normal extra hard drive the way you mount a BuyVM slab. If your app expects a raw disk you need an extra tool (such as rclone) or a local cache on the VPS.
Choose this if: A second copy matters more than the absolute lowest price, and your workload can live with cloud storage or a sync step.

Path C — a dedicated server plus ZFS

If you are storing many terabytes and you already know ZFS, an OVH ECO or SoYouStart server plus a mirror gives you control. You pay for the whole machine and you own the RAID. This is not cheaper than a slab for small amounts of data. It becomes useful when the dataset is large enough that a dedicated box makes sense and you want the disks under your own monitoring. European block-storage options are covered on the Netcup alternatives page if that shape fits better than a full dedicated server.

Strength: You choose the RAID level and the alerts.
Red flag: You are now the person who fixes hardware problems.
Choose this if: The data set is large and you are comfortable running ZFS.

Hetzner Storage Box — pure backup, not a live disk

Hetzner Storage Box is the cheap backup option that most BuyVM alternative lists skip. BX11 is about €3.20 for 1 TB. BX21 is about €10.90 for 5 TB. Both prices exclude VAT. Traffic is unlimited and there is no setup fee on the listed plans (October 2026). You can reach the box with FTP, SFTP, SCP, WebDAV, Samba, or rsync. Snapshots are available. Locations are Germany or Finland.

It is not a block device. You cannot attach it as an extra hard drive. For pure archive or offsite backup of a server it is often the lowest-cost path that still gives you unlimited traffic. It undercuts both a healthy BuyVM slab and B2 when you do not need the disk to appear as a local drive.

What the prices actually look like

Here is the same comparison in one place (October 2026):

• BuyVM slab: $5 per terabyte when you can order it. Same data center only. Up to eight slabs, 10 TB max each.
• Storage VPS (HostHatch or GreenCloud class): roughly $4–5 per terabyte on the plans that are in stock.
• Backblaze B2: $6.95 per terabyte plus the cost of the small VPS that talks to it. Free downloads up to three times what you store change the real bill for many people.
• Hetzner Storage Box BX21: about €2.18 per terabyte excluding VAT for pure backup (5 TB at €10.90).

What you give up sits next to the price. B2 is not a live disk. Storage Box is not attachable. A storage VPS is still self-managed and may have a bandwidth cap. A healthy BuyVM slab plus unmetered bandwidth remains the low sticker when inventory exists.

When you should stay on BuyVM

If your current slab is online, the same location still has stock for a replacement, and you already keep a second copy somewhere else, the $5-per-terabyte price plus unmetered bandwidth is still difficult to match. The failures people have written about are real. They are not a promise that every slab will fail. Watching the disk and keeping an off-box copy is the non-negotiable part. Moving only because a forum thread worried you is optional. Keep the second copy either way.

This page is not the Contabo, Netcup, or HostHatch page

Contabo’s story is about packing a lot of memory onto one machine and the variance that creates. That lives on the Contabo alternatives page. Netcup’s 2026 story is about stock and a plan change; new orders use the G12.5 line. The full HostHatch price-per-gigabyte table belongs on the HostHatch page. This URL only answers the slab-replacement question. Use the other pages when your actual job is one of those other problems.

FAQ

Why is BuyVM always out of stock?
Demand for the cheap servers and slabs is higher than the capacity in the published locations. Restocks arrive in small batches. The order form is the only reliable check. A Cloudzy banner often appears when BuyVM inventory is gone.

How much is BuyVM block storage?
$1.25 per 256 GB, which is $5 per usable terabyte. The maximum size is 10 TB per slab. You can attach up to eight slabs to one server, and they must be in the same data center. The official page is buyvm.net/block-storage-slabs.

Are BuyVM storage slabs reliable?
Most of them run fine. Silent failures and multi-day outages are documented on LowEndTalk, including a 2025 Miami cluster drive failure. The practical rule is monitoring plus a second copy, not a promise that no slab will ever fail.

What is the best BuyVM alternative for storage?
There is no single best. An orderable storage VPS (HostHatch or GreenCloud) if you want the slab model today. A small VPS plus B2 if you want a different failure domain. A Storage Box if you only need backup. A dedicated server plus ZFS if you want to own the RAID.

Is Backblaze B2 cheaper than a storage VPS?
The sticker price is higher ($6.95 versus about $5). Free downloads up to three times what you store often make the real cost closer for backup or media workloads. It is object storage, not a block disk.

Does Hetzner have something like slabs?
Storage Box is the closest cheap option, but it uses file protocols. It is not a block device you attach to a VPS. BX21 is about €10.90 for 5 TB excluding VAT.

What is the Cloudzy banner?
When BuyVM locations are out of stock, the order form often shows a banner that sends people to Cloudzy. The operator announced an acquisition on LowEndTalk in early 2025. Confirm current details on the day you order.

How do I move data off a slab?
You can detach a slab and attach it to another server in the same data center without a reboot. For a full move, use rsync, rclone, or a block-level tool to a new disk or to B2. Keep the second copy until the new location is verified.

Close

If the slab is healthy and you can still order a replacement in the same data center, stay and keep the second copy. If the order button is dead or you no longer want a single disk as the only copy, pick the path that matches the job: a storage VPS for an attachable disk today, a VPS plus B2 for a different failure domain, or a Storage Box for pure backup.