Microsoft Allowing OneDrive Users on Free Tier to Keep 15GB Free Storage and Camera Roll Bonus

[jbachandouris]

I had set up One Drive on my wife's PC when I bought it for her (she reused a Mac. Crazy right?). Apparently, the My documents folder is the only one that backs up by default (seriously? Why not Photos?). Her hard drive crashed and her pictures are gone.

I reminded her that I had told her to set up iCloud on her new iPhone I bought her, several times, yet she ignored my advice. She has iCloud backup setup and has resorted to burning pictures to CD as well.

 

[brinary001]

And as an added bonus they'll continue to look at every file you upload!

 

[Zorn]

So let me get this straight, if I upload 5GB worth of files to OneDrive, I get a year of office 365 subscription?

Anyone know if any details have come out around this? I did the opt-in thing to keep 15GB, but I will absolutely go upload 5.2GB of junk if it will get me a free year of Office.

 

[newdeal]

yeah you really can't reduce storage like that I am glad they reversed. What are they going to do start deleting data for people who have filled their 15gb? Or start charging them for using a service that used to be free? To be honest I never use mine, and didn't know I had 30gb, and didn't know they were changing their policy, until this article came around...but none the less I clicked the link to make sure I keep the free space I don't use

 

[LovingTeddy]

And as an added bonus they'll continue to look at every file you upload!

How do you know Apple not looking at your files?

 

[bernuli]

I don't get why people are crying

Just like ATT had to cancel unlimited data, all of these players will have to go away from
providing unlimited or large storage capacity for little or no money.

They never expected the misusers, which btw they are not doing anything but taking them by the word UNLIMITED. They also weren't smart enough to recognize that people never throw anything out.

I can't believe they did not learn from ATT. When ATT first offered Unlimited Data, there was not that much data to be had, plus there was not that much bandwidth even if there was demand. Now everyone wants to stream high res videos over the cell network. I don't think ATT make a mistake, they just did not realize what was coming.

Here we are now and people are shooting their own high res videos and photos. Local storage is fast and cheap, so people are going to storing more and more locally. If it were me and I could have a copy of ALL that data online, accessible from anywhere, why wouldn't I? I mean, I wouldn't, but I KNOW _lots_ of people would.

Someone at Microsoft had to be like "this is a really bad idea"?

 

[randian]

The web app that enables keeping that storage wants access to your contacts. I'm not sure why, it's suspicious.

 

[jtaylor673]

Here is a copy of the Google bonus storage that I mentioned in an earlier post. Somewhat similar to Microsoft's actions. Let's not forget, we helped Microsoft add many new email users by inviting our friends to Outlook, because we thought Microsoft was offering us something of better value than what the other companies were offering. Your welcome Microsoft.

Your Google Drive bonus storage is expiring soon.

We wanted to let you know that your bonus Google Drive storage is expiring very soon. If you wish to purchase additional storage, you should do so before Oct 3 2015 to avoid any changes to your service related to this expiration.

The expiring bonus storage offer is:
Quick Office Bonus - 10G

The offer will expire on:
Oct 3 2015
Rest assured that your files in Google Drive remain safe and accessible by you and the people you’ve shared them with. You just won’t be able to add or sync any files unless you are using less than your current available storage or you’ve purchased additional storage. (If you use Google Photos or Gmail, those services could also be affected.)

Please visit the help center for more details and thank you for using GoogleDrive.

When did they do a similar reduction?

In 2013 they combined the storage of Google Drive (5GB free) and Gmail (10GB free) for 15GB total. Not really a reduction.

 

[Steve121178]

The damage has already been done. I've jumped to Google Drive.

If you were using OneDrive for free, then there's no damage done. They got you off the service as planned as they want paying subscribers, not people who are using the service for free. The offer to keep people's free 15GB+15GB camera roll bonus is just a bit of good PR as they know full well most people won't realise they need to do this to keep their free storage.

If more free-loaders leave the service, perhaps it will lighten the load on their cloud infrastructure & perhaps help increase the damn upload/download speeds for us paying 365 customers.

 

[dfgddikf]

So let me get this straight, if I upload 5GB worth of files to OneDrive, I get a year of office 365 subscription?

That's what I did yesterday. I got the account and the camera roll bonus when they made their first announcment. I'm not sure if I uploaded too late, though. Maybe only people who had over 5GB on it at the time of the announcment are eligible for the free Office 365.

 

[dfgddikf]

Anyone know if any details have come out around this? I did the opt-in thing to keep 15GB, but I will absolutely go upload 5.2GB of junk if it will get me a free year of Office.

Pretty sure it's either keeping the 30GB or Office.

 

[Thunderhawks]

And as an added bonus they'll continue to look at every file you upload!

The receipt for your Christmas gift to aunt Edna is really worth looking at!

Seriously, who puts anything into the cloud that could be dangerous
for somebody else to know?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Here is a copy of the Google bonus storage that I mentioned in an earlier post. Somewhat similar to Microsoft's actions.

When Google awarded that "bonus" storage it had a clear 2 year time limit. Same for most of their promotions (Chromebook, Motorola Moto x, QuickOffice, for example). Awarding a 2 year bonus storage and Microsoft saying 365 subscribers get unlimited storage - then taking it away = two very different things.

Here is a picture of my Google Drive storage (below). I had both the Moto X, QuickOffice promotions. Notice the time limits on the Chromebook promotions.

I have about 160GB on OneDrive because I have an Office 365 subscription (was going to use it for my primary storage because I was promised Unlimited - I got the 10TB "in place" of Unlimited till they got around to it.) Then I hear they're going back on their unlimited. I guess I get to keep the 10TB for another year while I ponder Microsoft going back on promising stuff.

Google has my business now. I'll be moving there because who knows when Microsoft will punish us further for the actions of the few.

Funny how you have to give Microsoft permissions to your email and all your files to keep your storage.

 

[techpr]

OneDrive customers using more than 5GB of free storage will also receive a free Office 365 Personal subscription with 1TB storage for 12 months.

Can someone clarify this?

 

[Peepo]

Even though I am an Office 365 subscriber, I went through the link anyways in case in the future I cancel it.

Mine looks like this...

Free 15 GB
Your additional storage
Referral bonus (0% achieved) 0 GB
Loyalty bonus 10 GB
Office 365 subscription 10,240 GB
Camera roll bonus 15 GB

 

[nolankvn]

If you were using OneDrive for free, then there's no damage done. They got you off the service as planned as they want paying subscribers, not people who are using the service for free. The offer to keep people's free 15GB+15GB camera roll bonus is just a bit of good PR as they know full well most people won't realise they need to do this to keep their free storage.

If more free-loaders leave the service, perhaps it will lighten the load on their cloud infrastructure & perhaps help increase the damn upload/download speeds for us paying 365 customers.

If the free storage tiers did nothing for their business they wouldn't exist to begin with. Why do you think they introduced them in the first place? So they can get people on their platform.

Also, you're incredibly naive if you think that users on their free storage plans were a burden on their infrastructure. You might be able to make that case for the people on the unlimited plan who were uploading multiple TB's of data, but the goal of these storage cuts is to get more users to pay for Office 365. Your upload/download speed isn't going to just magically increase.

 

[Rumiku]

I don't get why people are crying about free cloud space from anybody.

You have a lot of options:
...
Just pay already, cut down on your Starbucks and $ 10 a month gets you a lot of storage.

Combine that with the (currently) FREE stuff and most of all, start throwing out stuff!

You know, you're right. In a very strict, narrow scope. However, when Microsoft wants to tell us how we are getting "scroogled", pointing out how better a Surface Pro 3 or 4 is to a completely different class model of MacBook than would be fair comparison, or how a we all need the latest version of Office with this years color theme, I think these users have a valid point.

And it isn't just "free" users being affected. It's paid users too. To blame a few "bad apples" (/pun) as the near sole reason to cut down their storage tiers; its just insulting. By all means, believe exactly the story being given to you. But a quick cursory evaluation of the past, present and future of Microsoft shows us this is just another anti-consumer and consumer-hostile move.

Everything eventually changes and there is never a guarantee of anything. And foolishly so, is the person who believes the opposite. This "new" Microsoft wants us to believe, desperately so, that they are white as snow, clear as rain, while actively attempting to hurt consumers for their benefit. I would say, based on the premise Microsoft sold their users on, that it is fair to allow for some anguish to be lobbied against them for this cut.

Here is some numbers to think about:

>>> Average OneDrive Consumer Version Usage is 75TB divided by 14k users, yields 5.357GB of data used per person. Remember this number.
>>> OneDrive for business adoption has risen by 179% (no timeline given for that increase).
>>> Price Per GB (PPG) has failed 23% for spindle media in the last 24 months while size has increased 25%
>>> Office365 Home and Personal have a combined 7.1 million subscriber base
>>> More than 250 million OneDrive consumer users
>>> 80% of the Fortune 500 are on the Microsoft Cloud in some way
>>> Greater than 1.2 billion (yes, billion) use Microsoft Office. That is One in every 7 people on the planet.
>>> Outlook.com has more than 400 million active users
(metrics pulled from various sources, from 11/13/2014 through today. The minute reductions would be minimal and likely have all increased)

While we are at it, let’s consider these important factors:

>>> Windows 10 and Windows 8.x both tie into the Outlook.com services, heavily so with OnDrive.
>>> Windows 10 and to a lesser extent Windows 8.x, heavily entice users to sign up or sign in with an MS account. Both do not make it overly obvious to create a local account.
>>> Outlook.com active users include, by default, OneDrive storage
>>> MS Office is the default in status quo for documents and spreadsheets

And we'll add in some highlights of the past:

2010: Windows Phone 7 jailbreaking gets accounts banned
2010: Microsoft Kin fiasco
2011: Removal of Windows 8 start menu code preventing backwards compatibly (monopoly used to force users to use start screen to spur lagging phone sales)
2013: Xbox One draconian DRM (always on, ability to tie games to codes killing used game market)
2012: Windows Phone 8 upgrade snuffs Windows Phone 7 handsets after promising support
2015: Windows 10 forced updates for Home and Pro
2001: MS Jim Allchin pleading to congress on how Open Source is harmful to consumers
2005: MS knew about Xbox 360 issues and fail rate, still went ahead with plans
2014: Xbox Live paywall to all things (such as Netflix/Hulu), only stopped on this year (2014)
2012: Games for Live promised to be the future
2014: Games for live discontinued

 

[Max(IT)]

Signed in to maintain the current 15+15 Gb base (+ 1 Tb from the office 365 subscription).

 

[Thunderhawks]

You know, you're right. In a very strict, narrow scope. However, when Microsoft wants to tell us how we are getting "scroogled", pointing out how better a Surface Pro 3 or 4 is to a completely different class model of MacBook than would be fair comparison, or how a we all need the latest version of Office with this years color theme, I think these users have a valid point.

And it isn't just "free" users being affected. It's paid users too. To blame a few "bad apples" (/pun) as the near sole reason to cut down their storage tiers; its just insulting. By all means, believe exactly the story being given to you. But a quick cursory evaluation of the past, present and future of Microsoft shows us this is just another anti-consumer and consumer-hostile move.

Everything eventually changes and there is never a guarantee of anything. And foolishly so, is the person who believes the opposite. This "new" Microsoft wants us to believe, desperately so, that they are white as snow, clear as rain, while actively attempting to hurt consumers for their benefit. I would say, based on the premise Microsoft sold their users on, that it is fair to allow for some anguish to be lobbied against them for this cut.

Here is some numbers to think about:

>>> Average OneDrive Consumer Version Usage is 75TB divided by 14k users, yields 5.357GB of data used per person. Remember this number.
>>> OneDrive for business adoption has risen by 179% (no timeline given for that increase).
>>> Price Per GB (PPG) has failed 23% for spindle media in the last 24 months while size has increased 25%
>>> Office365 Home and Personal have a combined 7.1 million subscriber base
>>> More than 250 million OneDrive consumer users
>>> 80% of the Fortune 500 are on the Microsoft Cloud in some way
>>> Greater than 1.2 billion (yes, billion) use Microsoft Office. That is One in every 7 people on the planet.
>>> Outlook.com has more than 400 million active users
(metrics pulled from various sources, from 11/13/2014 through today. The minute reductions would be minimal and likely have all increased)

While we are at it, let’s consider these important factors:

>>> Windows 10 and Windows 8.x both tie into the Outlook.com services, heavily so with OnDrive.
>>> Windows 10 and to a lesser extent Windows 8.x, heavily entice users to sign up or sign in with an MS account. Both do not make it overly obvious to create a local account.
>>> Outlook.com active users include, by default, OneDrive storage
>>> MS Office is the default in status quo for documents and spreadsheets

And we'll add in some highlights of the past:

2010: Windows Phone 7 jailbreaking gets accounts banned
2010: Microsoft Kin fiasco
2011: Removal of Windows 8 start menu code preventing backwards compatibly (monopoly used to force users to use start screen to spur lagging phone sales)
2013: Xbox One draconian DRM (always on, ability to tie games to codes killing used game market)
2012: Windows Phone 8 upgrade snuffs Windows Phone 7 handsets after promising support
2015: Windows 10 forced updates for Home and Pro
2001: MS Jim Allchin pleading to congress on how Open Source is harmful to consumers
2005: MS knew about Xbox 360 issues and fail rate, still went ahead with plans
2014: Xbox Live paywall to all things (such as Netflix/Hulu), only stopped on this year (2014)
2012: Games for Live promised to be the future
2014: Games for live discontinued

You are basically confirming my point that UNLIMITED or FREE can't be sustained forever.

The demands for cloud storage will increase at a much faster pace than storage availability.
Supply and demand will then dictate what a company has to do next.

4K video, Hi Res pix, FLAC music like somebody posted are only the beginning.

Plus you adoption rates. As old farts like me will die, the younger and coming generations
will put even more strain on that situation.

Obviously there will be some inventions to soften the blow.

There was just no way for anybody to imagine where this would go.

In the end there are only 2 decisions as everybody's data base grows for whatever reason:

1) Store your data locally
2) Pay up for cloud stuff.

 

[Tech198]

I'm glad this is a Microsoft article

Apple would never allow such a thing.. regardless how many complained.

However, u say the word "unlimited" and people will flock to upload terra-bytes of stuff.. regardless.
I think MS did the right thing by discontinuing unlimited storage..... So many users would complain "this service is slow as hell" and "its starting to be too expensive" as MS would raise prices to afford the bandwidth.

 

[Gigaman]

I don't get why people are crying about free cloud space from anybody.

You have a lot of options:

1) Keep your stuff on your computer/hard drive
2) Buy more hard drives

These days HDs are very cheap.

Thinking that any business owes you something is silly.
They don't even care that the stuff they are selling you works.

Running and keeping up servers, updating software etc. costs money.
R & D how to compress things better, making up/downloads faster etc.
costs money.

Just like ATT had to cancel unlimited data, all of these players will have to go away from
providing unlimited or large storage capacity for little or no money.

They never expected the misusers, which btw they are not doing anything but taking them by the word UNLIMITED. They also weren't smart enough to recognize that people never throw anything out.

From the time a child/teenager can store music, photos, films etc. they are creating gigantic data bases
over their lifetime apr. getting to about being 76 years old.

There is no way to anticipate what is next.

I always have to laugh when people believe "lifetime membership" and UNLIMITED terms for anything.

Just pay already, cut down on your Starbucks and $ 10 a month gets you a lot of storage.

Combine that with the (currently) FREE stuff and most of all, start throwing out stuff!

Incredibly ignorant comment. And as others have hinted at, very closed minded.

 

[Gigaman]

I've been a fan of Microsoft products for most of my life, but more and more am I seeing a disconnect from them and their audience.

Are they trying to lose all of their customers on purpose?

 

[Azzin]

I could care less.

O/T, but I really detest this expression.

You could care less?

It doesn't even make sense grammatically.

*Despairing for the future emoticon*

 

[C DM]

Don't know what I did, but I have 40GB of free storage. I have been on this through all of the iterations, so maybe this is a loyalty bonus for hanging in through all the transitions. I do have an office 365 subscription through my university so that might have something to do with it as well.

I have pieced together a bunch of space by referring people to various cloud systems, so I use One Drive, Drop Box, Copy, Mega, and Flickr. It would be nice to have one system but that's the price of not paying for cloud space. My favorite was Sugar Sync, but they eliminated my free space.

Open your account online then select "Get more storage" at bottom left. That will show you what you have and from where. My guess is 15 regular+ 15 camera bonus and 10 loyalty bonus is what you will see there but it will show you for sure.

That's the 40 GB that I have as well. I wonder if I need to follow these new instructions somehow and if that would allow me to keep all 40 GB or would the 10 GB Loyalty Bonus would go away (some "Loyalty" that would be on their part).

 

[DynaFXD]

Even though I am an Office 365 subscriber, I went through the link anyways in case in the future I cancel it.

Mine looks like this...

Free 15 GB
Your additional storage
Referral bonus (0% achieved) 0 GB
Loyalty bonus 10 GB
Office 365 subscription 10,240 GB
Camera roll bonus 15 GB

You have a 10 TB Office 365 subscription? Is that for a business acct or something? I only have 1 TB. I don't need any more, just curious.