Changes to KVKK's cross-border transfer rules, egress fees and currency risk are leading many companies in Turkey to look for Amazon S3 alternatives. We cover the types of alternatives, a selection checklist and a step-by-step migration with rclone.
Amazon S3 has become almost synonymous with object storage. Many development teams and IT managers created their first bucket there. In recent years, however, companies in Turkey have been asking more and more often: "Should we stay on S3, or look for an alternative?"
This article looks at why companies seek alternatives, what kinds of alternatives exist, a checklist for choosing well, and practical steps for moving your data without downtime.
Why Are Companies Looking for Amazon S3 Alternatives?
1. KVKK and Data Residency
Article 9 of Turkey's Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK), which governs transfers abroad, was amended by Law No. 7499 in March 2024. Under the new regime, explicit consent is no longer a sufficient stand-alone basis for regular transfers abroad; appropriate safeguards such as standard contracts, and the notification duties attached to them, have taken centre stage.
If customer documents, backups or user uploads stored in a foreign region contain personal data, that is a cross-border transfer. Keeping data in Turkey does not remove your KVKK obligations, but it considerably simplifies the extra processes and risks that come with transfers abroad. If you serve public institutions, banks or the healthcare sector, your customer's contract may already require in-country hosting.
2. Egress Fees
With global cloud providers, uploading data is usually free but downloading it is not. On a normal day this may look small. The real surprise comes when you need a large restore or decide to switch providers. Downloading terabytes of data can cost close to months of storage fees.
3. Latency and Speed
Every request from Turkey to a foreign region travels a longer network path. With large backups and many small files, this stretches backup windows and lengthens restores. A data centre in Turkey is noticeably faster, especially when your offices and servers are also in Turkey.
4. Billing and Currency Risk
Usage-based, multi-line USD invoices make budgeting difficult. Knowing in advance what you will pay each month matters, particularly for SMEs. Fixed packages and a small number of billing items make life easier for finance teams.
Types of Alternatives
S3-Compatible Providers in Turkey
Local cloud providers that keep your data in Turkish data centres and support the S3 API. Advantages: data residency, low latency, local-language support and usually simpler billing. Things to check: the level of S3 compatibility (especially object lock and versioning), the quality of the data centre and the provider's certifications.
Self-Hosted: MinIO and Ceph
MinIO and Ceph (with its RADOS Gateway component) are open-source software that let you run S3-compatible storage on your own servers. They give you full control and keep data in your own facility.
But there is a price: hardware investment, monitoring disk failures, updates, capacity planning and experienced staff to do all of it. And keeping backups on storage in the same building does not protect you against physical risks such as fire or theft. A self-hosted setup is useful as a local copy, but on its own it does not meet the "copy in a different location" requirement.
Global S3-Compatible Providers
Providers such as Wasabi, Backblaze B2 and Cloudflare R2 stand out for simpler pricing than the big clouds and, in some cases, low or zero egress models. They can be a good answer to the cost problem, but the data is still held abroad. The KVKK cross-border transfer question remains, and you should read conditions such as fair-use policies and minimum storage durations carefully.
A Hybrid Approach: You Do Not Have to Move Everything at Once
Looking for an alternative does not mean abandoning Amazon S3 overnight. For many companies the sensible path is to split data by type and move in phases.
- Buckets with personal data first: move KVKK-sensitive data such as customer documents, user uploads and backups to Turkey in the first phase.
- Then backups and archives: large, rarely accessed data that must download quickly during a restore is where egress costs hurt most.
- Content that needs global delivery: for static content served to users around the world, you can keep your current setup while holding the primary copy in Turkey.
A phased approach reduces risk and lets you measure the real cost and performance difference at each step. Once you have seen the results of the first phase, you can decide on the next one with far more confidence.
When planning phases, answering three questions for each bucket helps: does it contain personal data, how much data is downloaded from it each month, and which applications and teams depend on it? The answers usually make the order obvious. Assigning an owner to each bucket also clarifies who tests what during migration and stops "who was using this bucket?" from surfacing on cut-over day.
A Checklist for Choosing
Whichever alternative you consider, get clear answers to these questions:
- In which country and which data centre is the data kept? Is it stated explicitly in the contract?
- S3 compatibility: does your software (Veeam, rclone, restic, your application's SDK) work smoothly? Are object lock, versioning, multipart upload and lifecycle rules supported?
- Total cost: what are storage, egress and request charges individually? Is there a minimum storage duration or early deletion fee?
- Currency and invoicing: is the invoice issued in Turkey? Can you receive a local invoice with VAT?
- Security: is HTTPS enforced? Can you create per-bucket access keys?
- Certifications and audits: is the provider independently audited, for example for an information security management system?
- Support: who can you reach, in which language, and how quickly, when something goes wrong?
- Exit path: if you want to switch providers later, how easily and at what cost can you get your data out?
CloudRUX S3 Pricing
In the spirit of transparency, we publish our prices. CloudRUX S3 storage costs 0.015 USD per GB per month (about 15 USD per TB). Fixed packages:
| Package | Monthly Price (VAT excluded) |
|---|---|
| 250 GB | 3.90 USD |
| 1 TB | 14.90 USD |
| 5 TB | 69 USD |
| 10 TB | 129 USD |
- Data ingress is free.
- API requests are free.
- Monthly egress up to the amount of data you store is included.
- Your data is kept in data centres in Turkey.
With this model, the only thing that drives your bill is how much data you actually store. A normal restore scenario does not generate extra charges.
Step-by-Step Migration with rclone
rclone is a free, open-source command-line tool for copying data between storage providers. It is one of the most practical ways to move from Amazon S3 to another S3-compatible service.
- Take inventory. Note the buckets to move, total data volume and object count. List which applications write to those buckets.
- Create target buckets. Create buckets with the same names at the new provider. If you plan to use object lock, enable it when creating the bucket.
- Configure rclone. Use the rclone config command to define two remotes: one for Amazon S3 and one for the new provider. For the new provider, enter the endpoint address, access key and secret key.
- Test the connection. Run rclone lsd against both remotes and confirm that buckets are listed.
- Make the initial copy. Use rclone copy to copy the source bucket to the target bucket. Add --progress to watch progress and --transfers to increase parallel transfers. For large datasets this can take hours; your applications keep using the old bucket in the meantime.
- Verify. Use rclone check to confirm that objects match on both sides.
- Sync the difference. Close to cut-over, run copy again to transfer objects added since the initial copy. Only new and changed objects are transferred.
- Repoint applications. Update the endpoint and keys in your application and backup software settings. Run one final delta copy.
- Do not delete the old data right away. Keep both in parallel for a few weeks, and close the old buckets only once everything is working smoothly.
Note: moving data out of Amazon S3 incurs egress fees. Estimate the migration cost upfront and split the move into phases if needed. Because the sync command deletes objects on the target that do not exist on the source, copy is the safer choice for the initial migration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to change my application code?
In most cases, no. AWS SDKs and S3 libraries allow a custom endpoint. Usually changing the endpoint, access keys and, if needed, the region is enough. If you use advanced S3 features, test in a staging environment first.
Does keeping data in Turkey end my KVKK obligations?
No. Duties such as privacy notices, data security, VERBİS registration and retention periods still apply. But you avoid the extra processes, such as standard contracts and notifications, that come with transfers abroad.
Will I have downtime during migration?
Not if it is planned properly. The initial copy runs in the background while applications keep using the old bucket. At cut-over, only the last changes are copied and settings are switched.
Is egress really included?
Yes. With CloudRUX S3, egress up to the amount of data you store is free every month. If you store 1 TB, you can download up to 1 TB during the month at no extra cost.
Move Your Data to Turkey with CloudRUX S3
CloudRUX S3 is an S3-compatible, predictably priced object storage service running in data centres in Turkey. Package details are on our S3 object storage page. Contact us to review your current S3 usage together and prepare a cost comparison and migration plan.