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

[djeeyore25]

I gave up with OneDrive storage because I never know how much storage I'll have on there. They've given me everywhere from 5gb to 47gb. I currently have 40gb and I'm not sure how I got that much. There's no point in uploading everything and having them take space away. I'd rather pay a little bit and know that the space will be there when I need it.

 

[rhett7660]

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.

You don't visit the computer/nas/limetech/home theater forums much. There are guys/gals who have ripped their entire dvd/blu-ray/music collections and some are larger than that! Now granted, those are some of the more extreme cases, but they are out there. So this actually doesn't surprise me.

 

[Carlanga]

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.

IMHO anything cloud related seems to be a mess at MS, they got caught off guard and late to the cloud game. They even had to create a no fee one time license for their mac office products as well after they realized it didn't work.
MS wants to move to a model of monthly fees which would secure their products longevity in the current marketplace and so far all they do is a screw up after a screw up with everything cloud related. They need to take a similar stand to apple, give a basic quantity and move an d expand slowly, but w google, apple, amazon ahead of the curve they want to take the lead from 2 laps behinds.

 

[just.in.time]

Understandable, but a shame that they are taking the free tier from 15gb down to 5gb.

 

[Ash Pole]

Really, the story should be about people's abuse of the 'unlimited' moniker. If I have Office 365, everyone gets a cloud drive and that is a great way to store things from a user point of view.

No, the real abuse is Microsoft's use of the word "unlimited' which is a marketing scam to dupe consumers.

 

[iamMacPerson]

Great. Now IDK what I'm gonn do with all my cloud files. I have 130GB of storage (15GB signup, 15GB Camera Roll bonus, 100GB from Bing Rewards), and while I've only used 4.5GB so far, Dropbox doesn't have a decent storage plan I can use, and I still can't upload files from iOS to iCloud Drive like Dropbox and OneDrive.

 

[dfgddikf]

Free users get a free year of Office 365 Personal to smooth the waves. IMO this is a very fair offer. I'm not using their Office 365 and just installed OD just for that. Only had a Microsoft account until now. Hopefully that was not too late.

 

[ohio.emt]

Doesn't hurt me to much, my storage needs for Onedrive aren't near my 1TB limit. When they announced this, I dind't think it was going to last long. Saw a lot of posts in other forums of people hoping to host their over 100TB digital libraries to it.

 

[joesegh]

" a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings"

so you snoop on our files? no thanks.

They've used some pretty interesting fingerprinting techniques to root out child porn in the past, so it's not necessarily true that they've actively snooped on your files. It's pretty easy to spot the top x% minority that is taking up an outsized share of the storage space. And 1 TB is still a lot. I have what I would call "a lot" (some of my CDs, some home movies, plus a lot of work and personal documents), and I'm only using 50 GB.

I fully expect that down the line, Microsoft will slowly ease these restrictions as they affect more than a very tiny percentage of storage abusers.

And don't forget that you still get access to Office 365 with your monthly fee.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Huh. OneDrive used to be kind of attractive and I was thinking about switching to it from Dropbox. Not anymore.

This is kind of a black eye for Microsoft in general, I think - they had been doing a great job of improving their brand image up until this one really stupid move.

 

[intofx]

Are these people accessing the 75TB or just digital hoarding

 

[Erdbeertorte]

I'm an office 365 subscriber I never realized until now that I had unlimited one drive space. I thought it was always 1tb.

Where do you live? I this unlimited plan USA only? I never saw that in my account too. It's up to 5 x 1 TB if I use more than one account.

But I don't use it anymore. It's just crap.

Dropbox is much faster and has no file size limit. Also it does not upload the whole file again if only one bit in it has been changed. My Parallels Windows VM is in the Dropbox folder. OneDrive would take ages to upload it again after I used it.
And OneDrive isn't able to store my iTunes library because some folder names are too long or something like that. Dropbox has no problem with it.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

" a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings"

so you snoop on our files? no thanks.

And Credit Card companies, Apple iCloud, Drop Box, GPS and social networking sites you think they do not track you either? Maybe you should read the fine prints before you agree to sign up and if it wasn't for them tracking how you use their service how do you expect to have any sort of improvements?

This is not Homeland Security so calm down and you can continue on your criminal work you have going on.

 

[Vegasman]

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? .

The desperation at Microsoft must be incredible. To put things in perspective, Microsoft stock is pretty much at an all time high.

 

[Steve121178]

Dude, iCloud data are encrypted.

That's like saying a door can't be opened if you don't have the key. You don't need a key to open a door, you use brute force instead.

 

[You are the One]

Microsoft is leveraging the actions of a handful of abusers as a bogus excuse to cut or eliminate the storage that they had promised a year ago.

No, not really. Microsoft and a host of other companies advertise goodies they (already from the beginning) know is not feasible business, just to sell a little bit more. Later on when the promo phase is over they redact, based on some stupid invented reason.

It's not that their IQ is 55 and they can't already from the beginning understand that some people really are going to use their "unlimited" offer to put up TB's of data in their cloud. No they are relatively intelligent, what they are not is honest, neither do they show any integrity.

 

[randian]

I'm still unclear on what "abusive" users have to do with eliminating their low and intermediate storage tiers. There's nothing between 5GB and 1TB now, right?

 

[dark_knight177]

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.

Of course they are doing it to upsell Office 365. Microsoft is not a charity, they exist to make money. Just like Apple keeps releasing 16gb iPhones in 2015 to upsell the 64gb version which costs $8 more to make.

It amazes me how people think they are entitled to something. Microsoft doesn't owe you s**t, especially to Apple shills who keep bashing Microsoft even when they release something great, like Windows 10.

Office 365 Personal subscription for $69.99 is well worth it, IMO. They give you 1tb of OneDrive storage AND Office 2016 for a Mac or a PC. It blows anything out of the water today. Apple charges $120 per year just for 1TB storage and that's ONLY for storage that doesn't even have file versioning.

Microsoft today is the least greedy out of all tech companies I know.

 

[techwhiz]

You don't visit the computer/nas/limetech/home theater forums much. There are guys/gals who have ripped their entire dvd/blu-ray/music collections and some are larger than that! Now granted, those are some of the more extreme cases, but they are out there. So this actually doesn't surprise me.

That guy that thinks 75TB legally is not possible has no clue.
I own 500+ DVD's. I know someone that owns more.
Let's say those are BluRay instead.
At an average of 40GB per disk you gat to 20TB real fast.
I know someone that owns a DVD/BlueRay library four times the size of mine.
So while 75TB seems impossible it is not.

The bottom line is this, Microsoft and others have advertised "Unlimited" storage, data, etc.
If you don't want it to be used as such, then don't advertise it as such.
When you sell me unlimited and then claim I have abused it, how? It's unlimited or it's not!

 

[farewelwilliams]

And Credit Card companies, Apple iCloud, Drop Box, GPS and social networking sites you think they do not track you either? Maybe you should read the fine prints before you agree to sign up and if it wasn't for them tracking how you use their service how do you expect to have any sort of improvements?

This is not Homeland Security so calm down and you can continue on your criminal work you have going on.

great. how about you give me access to your dropbox account then? i'm sure if you gave Dropbox interns access, you don't mind sharing with the world.

i'm using an encrypted volume on dropbox. not 100% fool proof, but it's a layer of security.

i don't mind Apple tracking since they don't really have any third parties to share data with.

don't care about credit card/social networking companies tracking me, as long as i'm not storing my files with them.

point is: if Microsoft is a search company, they have a million more ways to use your stored files vs the companies you listed.

 

[farewelwilliams]

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.

anyone should be kicked off for using 75TB without the need to look at the files. not a single person (that isn't an executive of a major company) should be using more than 10TB for "office" use. if you're an executive, you'd most likely keep documents off of a third party cloud.

 

[farewelwilliams]

LOL - you know almost every cloud based company has the rights (in the EULA) to access your files - there is very little they won't do - you want more privacy - get a SYNOLOGY and use their CLOUD SYNC technology and create your own private cloud.

not my point.
microsoft is the search business. i avoid storing files on search companies. they have a lot more third parties == million more ways to use your data.
i use an encrypted volume on dropbox to store important info.
i always avoid google drive.

 

[farewelwilliams]

yes, they do have access. Your data is encrypted on Apple's servers, but they have the master keys.


As far as I know, SpiderOak is the only company that lets you encrypt your data with your own master key.

sorry i meant regular access.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Come again? You obviously dont know how Apple icloud works

i meant regular access. sorry, was typing that right before bed.

and the cloudkit statement remains true.

 

[nolankvn]

Of course they are doing it to upsell Office 365. Microsoft is not a charity, they exist to make money. Just like Apple keeps releasing 16gb iPhones in 2015 to upsell the 64gb version which costs $8 more to make.

It amazes me how people think they are entitled to something. Microsoft doesn't owe you s**t, especially to Apple shills who keep bashing Microsoft even when they release something great, like Windows 10.

No where did I say I in my post that Microsoft owed me anything.

You know what amazes me? That people, like yourself, needlessly defend business decisions that are a disservice to their customers. It doesn't matter if it's Microsoft, Apple, Google or anyone else. I am the consumer. I don't care about Microsoft's profits. I want the best value. And just because it's in a company's interests to make a profit doesn't mean they are above criticism.

Wake up, smell the coffee, and take a good look in the mirror. Then tell me who the real "shill" is here.