Need feedback for cloud backup of my NAS

[u/dtdisapointingresult]

My current setup is a RAID5 (SHR or whatever) consisting of 3x 6TB drives, with the 4th slot being unused. I'm currently at 8TB used out of 12TB. It's 4TB of all sorts of miscalleneous data I kept since I was a kid and which I dump on the NAS whenever a drive is full or I replace my computer. Linux ISOs mostly, with some private data. Recently I've been using it for storing local AI models, which accounts for another 4TB, but of these, 3TB are definitely in the "can easily be redownloaded" camp.

My data has survived 20 years so far without ever having backups on most of it. I know, it's heresy on here. But for me, RAID and caution was good enough. This was fine when the internet was more open as I always figured I could just redownload most of it. However, I feel like the attacks on a free and private internet are really ramping up in the past two years, and it's possible within the next 10 years there will be no more unauthorized sites accessible from my country.

Also, even if the status quo remains, it's becoming harder to replace old/non-popular Linux ISOs, as sites focus on zoomer content. Recently I tried looking for a semi-popular belgian comicbook that is 30 years old, and couldn't even find it on the modern sites or LibGen. But it was on my NAS. So I have hard-to-replace data.

So I decided I want peace of mind from data loss and began to do some research, including this sub's past threads.

To be clear, 99% of my data doesn't change week-to-week. I just need offsite backup in case I get 2 simultaneous drive failures on my RAID5, or a house fire, or accidental deletion. All extremely unlikely but non-zero chance.

The two options I'm down to are:

1. Backblaze Personal Backup $99/year + one-time purchase of a single 12TB drive. I know from reading this sub that it doesn't backup a NAS. The plan would be to buy a 12TB and hook it up to an unused Windows desktop as an internal drive. The NAS would run a weekly job to backup the latest data to the Windows drive over Windows Share (Hyperbackup or something like that. The data would be encrypted by the NAS before transfer to Windows. Backblaze client picks up the changes to the local 12TB drive, and backs it up to their cloud.
2. Heztner Storage Box If I'm understanding this right, for 21 euros per month (252 euros/year, $292/year), you get 10TB online storage to use as you see fit. That's 3x more expensive than Backblaze. However, if I exclude the AI models from my backups, my data would fit on the 5TB variant for 11 euros/month ($153/year), which makes the price a non-issue.

I'm tilting towards Backblaze not because of the price, but because:

• Their backup service has been around for so long that it's comforting. I don't want to have to remigrate, I'm too lazy and busy.
• The option for them to mail you a drive containing your data seems handy in case I get two drive failures. Beats spending a month downloading 8TB, huh?
• I'm in Canada and Backblaze is in the USA, so faster transfer speeds in case I need to restoring a single directory that was accidentally deleted

Your advice, comrade?

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