Self-host storage

There is no object store and no managed filesystem here, and neither is coming. An S3-compatible endpoint or a shared filesystem is something you run on a VM, on volumes.

The shape

One VM, its root disk for the OS and the service, one or more volumes for the data (which disk holds what).

POST /v1/vms       {"name":"store1","ram_mb":4096,"disk_gb":40, ...}
POST /v1/volumes   {"name":"bulk1","size_gb":2000}
POST /v1/volumes/{id}/actions {"type":"attach","vm_id":"vm_..."}
POST /v1/vms/{id}/actions     {"type":"start"}

Then mount the volume by UUID and point the service at it: Volumes.

S3-compatible: MinIO

Serves the S3 API over one directory, which is your mounted volume. Any SDK that talks to S3 talks to it once you set the endpoint.

• Give it its own data directory on the volume, not the mount point itself.
• Put a DNS name in front of it from the start, so the machine underneath can be recreated without touching any client.
• Terminate TLS on the machine (a certificate for that DNS name), because the traffic crosses the public Internet even when both ends are your VMs.
• Open only its port inbound: Harden a VM.

Shared filesystem: NFS

A volume attaches to one VM at a time — these are block devices, not a shared filesystem. So "several machines, same files" means one machine exporting and the others mounting, with the export scoped to your own addresses in the server's firewall.

Every VM has a public address and there is no private network between them, so either scope the export tightly or put the mesh in first: Build a private mesh.

What it costs

Egress is metered at your VM's own interface, so serving another of your VMs costs the same as serving the Internet. Inbound is free. Reading a dataset repeatedly across the network costs more than putting it on the machine that reads it.

Volumes bill from creation to deletion, attached or not, and growing is one-way.

Back it up somewhere that is not here

A snapshot is stored alongside the disk it covers, so it covers your own deletes and nothing else. For anything you cannot lose, push copies off the platform — restic or borg on a schedule to a target you hold elsewhere — and test a restore.