Microsoft Reduces OneDrive Storage for Office 365 and Free Users, Eliminates Unlimited Option

[PrimeMatrix]

I thought that companies would have learned long by now that offering up front anything as unlimited that could cost substantially, is not the wisest thing to do, as there will always be people who take advantage of it, LOL. I cannot fathom yet what 75 TB is like, but kudos! I wish more of these companies would make an option and possibility to let someone store that connected cloud service on one of their own servers, or something. So many times I find that the icloud service is just phenomenal, and serves everything that I could imagine I would want it to do, but that the amount storage is just too small. If only I could just have my own server with my own storage but connect it to the icloud functionality for use with my iPhone, per se. Anyways, lots of off topic writing here, and I am sorry about that.

 

[srminton]

So please explain me once again why you are entitled to free 75TB of storage at Microsoft's expense.

I think you're missing the point. It's not that those scoundrels are entitled to 75TB; it's that Microsoft is penalising everyone, including people who are NOT abusing anything. How hard would it be to just cut off service for those people they already identified as backing up multiple PCs etc.?

It feels like they're not being honest, and using this as an excuse to raise prices, when a little honesty would go a long way: "We're increasing prices because we need to protect our profitability in order to support future investments in delivering the very best service to our customers yada-yada."

 

[Max(IT)]

Yes they can. It all sits on servers they manage, either in their data centres or on third party storage they lease. If required, your data can be accessed.

Apple post some information on their website such as this:

http://www.apple.com/uk/privacy/government-information-requests/



Yes, they 'carefully' review. Ultimately, once a request comes in, it's usually granted. As for the backdoor in any of their products, they don't need to give a 'backdoor' to an agency (although many companies do concede to Government demands). Information passed over the internet is all intercepted & archived. Here in the UK we are far, far worse than our US counterparts for snooping. In fact, when the US agencies are denied a request, they just come to us, it's called "collect & share". Our vast array of data archive servers contain every persons entire digital history & archive. This is the backdoor.

Snooping is far, far more sophisticated than people realise. It's like no ones considered that the very firmware on their computers internal components hasn't been compromised in some way to open a backdoor into your system. Well, it's more of a tunnel than a backdoor. At least a door can be closed...

Dude, iCloud data are encrypted.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

They can't be accessed.
They could be forced to give user's informations, but not access to user's data at all.

 

[kungpaaao]

I was one of the people that wanted to take them up on their UNLIMITED plan.

I paid $99.99 for their "Unlimited" storage back near the end of JULY.

After just 3 months, they are eliminating that?

This does seem like a bait and switch.

It seems kind of silly that they offered an "unlimited" plan. Now it comes back to bit them (for a small number of users).

It is lame they are cutting back on free storage. That's not good goodwill. If you want to entice users, give them a good chunk of storage and they will probably become paying users.

Not the first time MS gave then pulled back. And their promises of a great, new operating system which only leads to disappointment.

 

[kungpaaao]

How does this affect business subscribers?

I sold my company (and my CEO) on switching to OneDrive for Business because of Unlimited Storage. It was the only thing that made us see the value in dollar-per-GB. Now I have to explain, nope sorry, they changed their minds and now it is only 1 TB.

Anyone defending this should really get off the internet forever. Do you believe I should pay the same amount for 1 TB of storage as I was for Unlimited Storage?

Wait, 1 TB is not a lot for a business. That's seems awfully low.

 

[PrimeMatrix]

Their first tier (50GB) is actually $1.00 more than Apple's plan. That's hilarious.

You could also say that it is twice the price, or 200% the price ;-)

 

[weave]

Since we started to roll out unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 consumer subscribers, a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings. In some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average.

So they are using that as a justification for reducing the free tier from 15 to 5 GB? What's one have to do with the other?

 

[C DM]

Dude, iCloud data are encrypted.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

They can't be accessed.
They could be forced to give user's informations, but not access to user's data at all.

Pretty sure that's encrypted by Apple, meaning Apple can decrypt it as well.

 

[Primejimbo]

How is iCloud in terms of photo management? I like ease of backing up photos from the phone, but every month I also take them out to organize and storage them else where. Can I work with my photos like regular files on Mac?

I'm no pro, but all my photos on my iPhone and iPad sync to my MacBook. All my albums sync, and it uses less storage (the optimized feature) on my iPhone and iPad. I find it very easy to use, and I have my the full versions of the photos on my MacBook and on Apple servers. If all my apple studs crashes, I can go on iCloud.com and still have access to my photos and download them if I want.

 

[macjoshua]

You're better off spending that $10 on Google Play Music Pass. No longer tied to iTunes and my music automatically is sync-ed with the cloud storage. Unless, of course, you just checking off your "A"-list everything Apple to own...

All the music I've bought for the last 10+ years has been from iTunes. I own an iPhone, an iPad and a Mac - so I don't think I'd be better off, actually.

You're on an Apple forum. What do you expect?

 

[Carlanga]

The way you can abuse an all you can eat buffet. It's meant in the sense of functioning to allow a regular person their fill, but of a number of competitive esters show up every day and go through most of what is offered really quickly without leaving much then it's no longer sustainable to offer all you can eat and the buffet drops that offer.It's interesting how trust is somehow tied to pure subjective individual opinion of products and marketing not being creative or useful enough to someone.

Not really the same, even if a competitive eater eats all the food they won't kick him out. The offer might end in the future for future purchases. If the competitive eater buys a subscription for the buffet and they cancel it then they have to refund him completely. MS can cancel and reduce subs after a year, thats fine, but they need to refund completely for the customers.

 

[Azzin]

Just logged in to my O365 account to check what I've got...

 

[Carlanga]

You're better off spending that $10 on Google Play Music Pass. No longer tied to iTunes and my music automatically is sync-ed with the cloud storage. Unless, of course, you just checking off your "A"-list everything Apple to own...

for that you are better off paying nothing like I do w google music and have my 20k songs on my pocket w no fees

 

[Gudi]

Would you wish Microsoft's servers to be seen as safe places to store child pornography and abuse? Do you honestly think Apple are not checking in the same way? Do you want Apple to be the safe haven to store such data?

Now that you've made cloud storage to be about child abuse, why let people store any amount of data anywhere and expect any privacy?

 

[PrimeMatrix]

It seems to be quite a bummer that they would reduce the free from 15 to 5.

 

[C DM]

Not really the same, even if a competitive eater eats all the food they won't kick him out. The offer might end in the future for future purchases. If the competitive eater buys a subscription for the buffet and they cancel it then they have to refund him completely. MS can cancel and reduce subs after a year, thats fine, but they need to refund completely for the customers.

The next day the competitive eater comes back or any regular customer comes back the all you can eat option is no longer there. They got the use of it while it was there and won't get it when it's not there anymore. If there's some sort of a contract term or something like that, then sure a refund or something like that would come into play.

 

[Carlanga]

I disagree with you. Is this any different than seeing a candy dish in the office and taking it all as opposed to just one? It was meant to be free? So why not? It's abuse when people take advantage of it and go way outside of the intended use. 75TB of disk space is way outside of intended use I'm sure and the user(s) who did this know it.

Personally, I think it's good "free" is limited and "unlimited" is limited. Seems like we have a generation of consumers coming along who think anything digital should be open and free. However, my back account and paycheck disagree.

please don't blame this generation of consumers...
the candy bowls since they were first put were eaten improperly, not just in this time. People abuse everything and MS should have put a cap, but they wanted the free advertising of being the only one unlimited and it bit them in the ass. When you see a candy bowl it tends to say 'please take one' just like the samples of food in most places and that my friend is the candy bowl soft cap. Don't put the blame on the consumer when the company is the one that was trying to be shady. If they knew they couldn't support more than a x amount then they should have put at least a soft cap statement. Its MS, they have people for everything this is not a newbie on the tech and cloud business.

 

[Gasu E.]

so..there's a legitimate reason for using 75TB of space for "office" use?

There is a legitimate reason for MS to go in and try to figure out why the heck people are abusing their service. I think that is better behavior than arbitrarily kicking people off without trying to figure out why people are doing it. It's actually a good way to go about business, and life in general: ask a few questions before taking drastic action.

 

[Carlanga]

The next day the competitive eater comes back or any regular customer comes back the all you can eat option is no longer there. They got the use of it while it was there and won't get it when it's not there anymore. If there's some sort of a contract term or something like that, then sure a refund or something like that would come into play.

yes that is what I said... what do you think the one drive storage is? a subscription service.

 

[Max(IT)]

Pretty sure that's encrypted by Apple, meaning Apple can decrypt it as well.

That's highly unlikely....

iCloud uses a minimum of 128-bit AES encryption—the same level of security employed by major financial institutions—and never provides encryption keys to any third parties.

 

[Gasu E.]

Regardless of what you think about people "abusing" unlimited storage reducing the storage on the free tier from 30GB to 5GB is a low blow. They aren't doing it to save costs, they're doing it to upsell you on an Office 365 subscription.

So?

 

[Carlanga]

There is a legitimate reason for MS to go in and try to figure out why the heck people are abusing their service. I think that is better behavior than arbitrarily kicking people off without trying to figure out why people are doing it. It's actually a good way to go about business, and life in general: ask a few questions before taking drastic action.

That is not how bank vaults work, if you provide a service for personal items you need to provide security, if you didn't explain that you could snoop and see what you have inside their vault then that causes legal issues.

 

[C DM]

That's highly unlikely....

iCloud uses a minimum of 128-bit AES encryption—the same level of security employed by major financial institutions—and never provides encryption keys to any third parties.

The point is that they have the keys and if legally compelled what are they going to do?

 

[malnar]

The big thing here is trust. They trumpeted OneDrive a year ago for its UNLIMITED storage space. Subscribe to the wonderful world of Office 365 and move your digital life to the cloud, no limits! And now, suddenly, when people actually did do that, they've decided they can't handle it and are going to limit not just new users but ALL users, all of us who bought into the system for exactly what they touted.

Think about this: if Microsoft is willing to get deal with the firestorm of very bad publicity that is sure to come from this, how bad off are they? In how bad of shape is MS where the preferred outcome is every tech news site reporting on this, losing lots of current customers, and possibly poisoning the well of potential customers? Most people do not need Office anymore - Google offers the solid Docs, Apple has iCloud's Pages/etc., and they're FREE if you use their services. Unless you absolutely know you NEED Office, who in their right minds would choose Office 365/OneDrive after this? These are the actions of a company in very deep trouble.

 

[bergert]

Yes. There is absolutely no way any one person can consume 75 TB of personal data unless they're accruing illegally acquired content and hosting it for distribution.

My PVR saves about 15GB for a movie - and this *IS* legally acquired content. It supports also mounting network shares, and yes - I would actually prefer to host this PRIVATE data in the cloud. But who will give me 20TB of space for a reasonable price. It's just easier to buy a DROBO with 4x8TB disks (4x$170).