Pulsed Media Storage Box vs Hetzner Storage Box

Both Pulsed Media (Helsinki and Kerava, Finland, since 2010) and Hetzner (Germany and Finland) sell cheap, RAID-backed bulk HDD storage in the EU, reachable over standard protocols, with unlimited traffic. The difference underneath is one line: Hetzner gives you storage; Pulsed Media gives you storage you can run software on. That single distinction decides which one fits your job.

Quick comparison

Feature	Pulsed Media Storage Box	Hetzner Storage Box
Storage tiers	4 TB, 8 TB, 16 TB, 32 TB	1 TB, 5 TB, 10 TB, 20 TB
Price/mo (verified Aug 2026)	4TB €8.99 · 8TB €14.99 · 16TB €26.99 · 32TB €63.99 (as listed)	1TB €3.20 · 5TB €10.90 · 10TB €20.80 · 20TB €40.60 (excl. VAT — see hetzner.com)
Storage type	RAID5 HDD (redundant)	RAID (withstands several drive failures)
Network	10 Gbps	Not published per box
RAM on the box	500 MB	None — no compute
Shell / SSH access	Yes (user-level)	No
Run your own software (Docker, apps)	Yes — rootless Docker, full stack	No
Torrent clients (rTorrent/Deluge/qBittorrent)	Yes	No
Media stack (Jellyfin / *arr, one command)	Yes	No
Snapshots	No (native)	Yes — 10 to 40 depending on tier
Sub-accounts	Billing-level	Yes — up to 100 per box
Samba/CIFS	Via rootless Docker	Native
S3-compatible object storage	Yes — run your own on the box (rclone serve s3, MinIO, or a multi-box Garage cluster)	Not on the box (Hetzner sells S3 separately as Object Storage)
Protocols	SSH, SFTP, FTP(S), SCP, HTTPS, WebDAV, SSHFS, rsync, Rclone, Restic, BorgBackup	FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP, Samba/CIFS, HTTPS, WebDAV, rsync, BorgBackup, Restic, Rclone
VPN included	WireGuard + OpenVPN	No
Jurisdiction	Finland (EU, GDPR)	Germany or Finland (EU, GDPR)
Minimum term / cancel	Monthly; long-term discounts (5/10/15% for 1/2/3 yr)	None; cancel immediately

Both providers cover the standard backup toolchain (rsync, Restic, Borg) natively.

On price: Hetzner has the smaller, lower-commitment entry — a 1 TB box that Pulsed Media does not offer (Pulsed Media starts at 4 TB). Per terabyte the two are in the same ballpark, and Pulsed Media is competitive to cheaper at the larger tiers — its 16 TB box works out to roughly €1.69/TB, below any Hetzner tier. Compare the numbers yourself: prices are listed as shown on each provider's site (Hetzner excludes VAT; check the current figure and the VAT that applies to you), verified August 2026 and updated as pricing changes.

The core difference: is it a drive, or a small server?

A Hetzner Storage Box is exactly what the name says — a large, safe, cheap drive you reach over the network. You send files to it and pull them back with FTP, SFTP, Samba, WebDAV, rsync, or a backup tool like Borg or Restic. There is no shell and no compute on the box. That is a deliberate, clean design, and for pure backup it is excellent.

A Pulsed Media Storage Box is the same cheap RAID5 HDD capacity, but it runs the full Pulsed Media seedbox software stack on the box itself. You get user-level SSH, rootless Docker, and the ability to actually run things where the data lives: torrent clients (rTorrent, Deluge, qBittorrent), the one-command media stack (Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, SABnzbd), and your own containers — a Proxmox Backup Server target with full encryption, for example.

So the honest test is simple:

If you only need somewhere to send backups — either works, and you should compare on price, capacity, and snapshots.
If you need to run anything on the storage — seed torrents, host a media library, run a container, script an encrypted backup with shell — Hetzner's product structurally cannot do it, and Pulsed Media's is built for exactly that.

Where Hetzner is the better fit

Honesty first — Hetzner's Storage Box is a strong product and beats Pulsed Media on several real points:

Smaller entry tier. Hetzner starts at 1 TB; Pulsed Media's smallest storage box is 4 TB. If you need a single terabyte, Hetzner has an option Pulsed Media doesn't.
Native snapshots. 10 to 40 point-in-time snapshots depending on tier, manual or automated. Pulsed Media has no native snapshot feature. For ransomware-resistant backup rotation this matters.
Native Samba/CIFS and up to 100 sub-accounts. Both are first-class on Hetzner. On Pulsed Media, Samba is do-it-yourself via Docker and sub-accounts are handled at the billing level.
Scale and track record. Hetzner is one of the largest hosts in Europe, with a long operational history and a big documentation and community base.
German data-center option. If you specifically want Germany, Hetzner offers it; Pulsed Media is Finland-only.

If your need is "cheap, snapshot-protected backup, ideally starting at 1 TB, with native Samba" — Hetzner is likely the right call.

Where Pulsed Media wins

Compute on the box. SSH, rootless Docker, and the full seedbox software stack. You can seed, stream, and self-host on the storage itself — the thing Hetzner's product does not do.
Torrents and P2P are welcome. Pulsed Media is a seedbox company; running torrent clients on your storage box is a first-class, supported use.
Turnkey media and backup stacks. One-command install for Jellyfin and the *arr suite; rootless Docker for Proxmox Backup Server, MinIO/S3, and more.
Your own S3 endpoint on the box. Run S3-compatible object storage with rclone serve s3 or MinIO on a single box, or a self-owned, replicated Garage cluster across several boxes — no per-request or egress fees, and the keys stay yours. Hetzner's Storage Box has no S3; its object storage is a separate product.
Bigger top-end capacity. Up to 32 TB in a single box, versus 20 TB.
10 Gbps network and generous traffic. Around 30 TB/month of unlimited egress at 100 Mbps after the burst allowance, unlimited at full speed inside the datacenter.
Own infrastructure. Pulsed Media owns its hardware, software (PMSS, open source, GPL v3), and network in its own Finnish datacenters.
Included VPN and self-healing. WireGuard and OpenVPN included; over 20 watchdogs restart crashed services automatically.
Grows with you. 25% burst-over-quota for up to 7 days, plus free bonus disk that accrues the longer you stay.

Who should choose which

Pure backup target, 1 TB, snapshots, native Samba → Hetzner.
Seedbox cold-storage tier, media library, anything you want to run on the box, P2P-friendly bulk storage → Pulsed Media.
Tiered setup → many people run both: a fast SSD/NVMe seedbox for hot data and a big HDD storage box for cold. Pulsed Media's storage box pairs naturally with its SSD/10Gbps seedboxes for exactly this hot/cold split.

Bottom line

Both are honest, EU-based, RAID-backed, unlimited-traffic storage boxes at a fair price. If all you need is a drive to back up to, compare them on price, capacity, and snapshots — and Hetzner's 1 TB entry and native snapshots may win. If you need storage you can run software on — seed, stream, containerize, script with shell — Hetzner's product structurally can't, and that is precisely what a Pulsed Media Storage Box is built to do.

Pulsed Media offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can test the difference yourself.