Microsoft Boosts OneDrive Cloud Storage to 1TB for Office 365 Subscribers, 15GB Free for All

[phoenixsan]

Nice, but.....

Pick your poison, Google Drive give the 15 GB free..........I had picked that already.....For enterprises and more serious users, maybe the Microsoft office makes sense....

 

[randian]

Reasons I still use Dropbox:

1) Dropbox properly handles file metadata. Most cloud backup/sync services do it wrong.
2) 1Password Sync
3) I can store files where I want in my home directory and use symlinks to point to them, rather than having to store files in the cloud service's directory.

 

[katewes]

It seems like ages since Google increased their free storage amount shared by Gmail/Google Drive. I hope Google increase their free storage too.

 

[Liquorpuki]

This decision appears to allow MS to compete on its strengths. With technologies like Storage Spaces and Hyper-V, MS already owns much of the stuff you'd need to pull this project off and OEM's the hardware to run it on.

Apple will have to buy everything. Their business model doesn't require them to develop lots of back end products, so they would have to buy virtualization, storage OS, everything. I've no doubt Apple should be able to buy, say, Hitachi storage cheaper than any other customer based on volume alone. But that's unlikely to be cheaper than using your own storage processors on JBOD.
So I wouldn't necessarily call this a game changer, but it does look like a reasonable attempt by MS to differentiate itself from a competitor.

I think a wise man once compared tablets and computers to cars and trucks. Microsoft is deep into trucking. Maybe trains, to bend the analogy way out of shape.

They've been slowing transforming their server infrastructure into a hub linking all product lines for a while now - Office, XB1, WP, etc. Started under Ballmer, but it's really accelerated under Nadella.

In 2014, AWS leads the tech sector in cloud services with Azure creeping in. Google's whole Chromebook line is positioning itself 5-10 years from now when computers run most software off the backend. But Apple only seems to be treating the cloud as a feature to drive hardware sales. I don't think they have a vision for it or recognize its disruptive potential.

 

[SeaFox]

If I haven't cared about what developers think before, why would I start caring now?

I'll remember this quote if I ever see this member complain about what features are, or are not, in a software product, or how they are executed.

 

[iOSaddict]

Goodness me, such self-entitled comments in this thread.

 

[randian]

Google's whole Chromebook line is positioning itself 5-10 years from now when computers run most software off the backend. But Apple only seems to be treating the cloud as a feature to drive hardware sales. I don't think they have a vision for it or recognize its disruptive potential.

Why would most software do that? You seem to have forgotten products like the Sun 3/50 diskless workstation. Sun ("The Network is the Computer") was going for that central server vision you talk about. Vast increases in storage and computing power killed that vision. Office online is quite frankly a terrible experience compared to the real thing. Same goes for the Pages and Numbers online offering. The only reason SaaS offerings like Basecamp work is because they're really about geographic displacement, not user experience.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Why would most software do that? You seem to have forgotten products like the Sun 3/50 diskless workstation. Sun ("The Network is the Computer") was going for that central server vision you talk about. Vast increases in storage and computing power killed that vision. Office online is quite frankly a terrible experience compared to the real thing. Same goes for the Pages and Numbers online offering. The only reason SaaS offerings like Basecamp work is because they're really about geographic displacement, not user experience.

Your Sun workstation is from the 80's. Just like processing and storage have evolved over 30 years, so has networking tech. There are now datacenters everywhere, PC market is shrinking, and software companies have been porting IP to the Cloud as a reaction.

Chromebook is Google's vision, not mine. I don't know if or when it'll become a standard architecture, but it's an intriguing concept. Heavy lifting gets offloaded so the end user benefits by not having to pay as much for front end hardware. And that's probably why Apple is neglecting the Cloud - their profit comes almost entirely from sales of front end hardware, not from backend services, and not off software that can be ported to the backend. Apple basically needs SaaS to suck to maintain its revenue stream.

With Office Online, not sure what you're referring to. Even though it's integrated with Azure, 365 still runs off a local client. And Pages and Numbers just have crappy little file reader webapps but full functionality isn't hosted in the cloud.

 

[Spectrum]

THIS:

Reasons I still use Dropbox:

1) Dropbox properly handles file metadata. Most cloud backup/sync services do it wrong.

I tried a few of other services (Google Drive, SugarSync) and they are not correctly syncing metadata - causing some old file types (with a resource fork?) to break.

Having said that, the web Dropbox interface also causes these same filetypes to break (as does emailing these files via an exchange server).

Also, Dropbox still does NOT sync folder icons.

 

[Steve121178]

I think Microsoft is waiting for TechNet to expire in August before releasing Office 2014. Just a hunch.

No, that has nothing to do with it. My subscription runs until the end of November anyway, others have even longer to run before it expires.

Microsoft wants to sell you an Office 365 subscription anyway. To be honest, it's such good value for money it's a no-brainer.

----------

Also, Dropbox still does NOT sync folder icons.

People still use folder icons? How retro.

 

[randian]

Also, Dropbox still does NOT sync folder icons.

Finder shows folder icons in my Dropbox folder.

 

[0098386]

It supports Windows 8

Not Windows XP or 7? 10% of PC users have Windows 8 (or 8.1).

----------

Goodness me, such self-entitled comments in this thread.

How so?

 

[2457282]

I've been backing up my iPhone and iPad to iCloud for at least the past 12 months and I don't see any reason why I would go back to syncing those devices with iTunes on my Mac.

The *only* reason I had to buy additional iCloud storage was to accommodate the backups of both my 32 GB iPhone and my 16 GB iPad. That's asinine. Apple should not encourage us to backup our devices to iCloud but not include the storage to do so in the price we pay for the devices.

I suggest going in and customizing what is actually backed up from your phone. I have 2 iPhones and 1 ipad. I back them up through iCloud and still have not exceeded 5gig. I don't backup photos or music or most apps. Photos are downloaded to my computer and the last 1000 are on iCloud. Music is always on iCloud. Most apps are stored in the App Store and can be downloaded and the app data is not important (high score or whatever). What I backup are things like pages, keynote, numbers, day one. Even then most of that data is in iCloud so it syncs across my devices. Backups should generally be small.

 

[Tech198]

1TB

Now all i need is an Office 365 subscription, and a *good* excuse to use it.

 

[Zauberer]

Do we know for sure yet with the new iCloud Drive that Photos do not count against the storage, as in the current Photo Stream?

 

[AppGuru]

15GB? Still doesn't change much – I mean 15 GB is barely enough for two good quality HD movies!

And for this Microsoft gets your data, your pesonal details and literally anything you put in there. They can peek through your files to see if it conforms to their silly Terms and Conditions. And then they can block your account whenever they feel like it, just like they did to that German photographer who lost all of the work on his SkyDrive, because MS thought that pictures looked too much like pr0n.

I back up my important stuff with my own 1TB NAS - over several years it's much cheaper than whatever OneDrive could offer me. And if I need to share something with someone, I use web services like Filemail – they allow you to share any number of files up to 30GB (!) each for free.

 

[Razeus]

It seems like ages since Google increased their free storage amount shared by Gmail/Google Drive. I hope Google increase their free storage too.

It was just last year around May 2013...

In March they made it even cheaper to buy more storage.

Stop being cheap.

 

[Mums]

Oh please
iCloud is limited.

It doesn't just work. Talk to developers

They hate iCloud

Get out of here with that talk. 5 Gbs.. Useless

Agreed. I have always had major problems with iCloud. Right from the start it messed up my Apple ID and password that I'd had since 2001. And now it's constantly bothering me with error messages, lack of space, not recognising passwords, usernames. I really don't like iCloud at all, not that there are any other good storage solutions out there yet.

 

[Razeus]

I'm in the Google camp now, but with MS Office, I may as well go this route. It's like getting Office for free if I'm going to pay for cloud storage. I find Office is much better than Google Docs. MS as the Office suite mastered.

 

[kds1]

Same here. These file syncing things are OK, but I'd rather have a straight up file server.

Hear! Hear! That would make Apple's service unique again and much better. You'd still have the option to create a local offline directory.

 

[Fattytail]

Alright, Apple, match or even come somewhat close to this and I'm sold on iCloud. Will make the switch wholesale from other cloud providers.

 

[Parasprite]

I'll remember this quote if I ever see this member complain about what features are, or are not, in a software product, or how they are executed.

Please do. I'd be delighted if you could shut me up this way when I'm complaining; I don't do it often.

I'm not even being sarcastic here.

 

[2IS]

Goodness me, such self-entitled comments in this thread.

Some of us, love ourselves more than we love Apple. You wouldn't understand.

 

[Winni]

Sure, let's feed all files and data directly into the NSA datacenter, ...

thanks, but no thanks, ...

They are all "NSA data centers" - it doesn't matter if you're using services from Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, Dropbox or ANY other US-American company.

 

[kds1]

Your Sun workstation is from the 80's. Just like processing and storage have evolved over 30 years, so has networking tech. There are now datacenters everywhere, PC market is shrinking, and software companies have been porting IP to the Cloud as a reaction.

Chromebook is Google's vision, not mine. I don't know if or when it'll become a standard architecture, but it's an intriguing concept. Heavy lifting gets offloaded so the end user benefits by not having to pay as much for front end hardware. And that's probably why Apple is neglecting the Cloud - their profit comes almost entirely from sales of front end hardware, not from backend services, and not off software that can be ported to the backend. Apple basically needs SaaS to suck to maintain its revenue stream.

With Office Online, not sure what you're referring to. Even though it's integrated with Azure, 365 still runs off a local client. And Pages and Numbers just have crappy little file reader webapps but full functionality isn't hosted in the cloud.

All I have to say is SaaS and Google's "vision" is nasty nasty nasty.