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

[haruhiko]

It's unlimited*.


*until I say it's not

So you don't encrypt your stuff before uploading ANYWHERE to the internet, and instead make a snarky comment?

Your input = no thanks!

Actually, I guess 99% of the people using cloud drives do not do that.

 

[Ash Pole]

If people didn't abuse these services there would be no need for companies to go in and see what the hell was taking so much space.

How exactly am I abusing the system with the 15GB account that they're taking away? Or the 10GB camera upload bonus? In less than 10 months, MS reneged on both offers. I'm so glad I didn't pay for the larger tiers. I also made sure that everything I uploaded was encrypted first....MS has a sleazy history of snooping through customer's files.

 

[JustMadeThisNameUp]

This is exactly the type of thing that forced AT&T to stop offering unlimited data. People would tether their phones and play online games, torrent, all sorts of heavy bandwidth activities. It ruined it for everyone but I have to wonder why Microsoft would do this, what did they think people were going to use unlimited storage for other than massive amounts of data?

 

[Candlelight]

I was an early adopter of SkyDrive. I got 25GB because of it. Since then I've managed to accrue a total of 40GB.

So now come 2016 I'm being reduced to 10GB? How is that fair??

 

[RockSpider]

How exactly I'm I abusing the system with the 15GB account that they're taking away? Or the 10GB camera upload bonus? In less than 10 months, MS reneged on both offers. I'm so glad I didn't pay for the larger tiers. I also made sure that everything I uploaded was encrypted first....MS has a sleazy history of snooping through customer's files.

Any company that was in the same position as MS would do the same, it's happened with unlimited data plans as well, blame the lowlife abusing the system.

 

[Megakazbek]

Think about it - How does 1 person or even a family accrue 75TB of data?

Let's say I'm a movie fan and backup all my blu-rays? Collection of few thousand movies is not extremely uncommon.
Or I am producing an amateur youtube show and back up all my recording in raw uncompressed format? That can be as much as about 1 TB per hour.
Anyway, this question should not even be asked. It was not "fair use unlimited data with 100 page usage policy attached", it was "unlimited data" period. I can imagine that some people would specifically buy such service to store their huge archives of disks/tapes/whatever in an easy to use digital format, and relying on the promise that it's unlimited data, they would want to store it in best possible quality without any compression, i.e. specifically try to maximize their data usage to preserve the original media better. They could see it not as abuse, but as finally the solution of what to do with that pile of video recordings or whatever. And it's Microsoft's problem that they couldn't foresee this kind of users.

 

[nicho]

do i understand this right; i don't have an office 365 subscription but i do have free onedrive. i've been thinking about getting office 365 instead of doing all my work at work. so if i just, upload some stuff (5GB worth) i get it free for 12 months??

 

[Dammit Cubs]

" 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.

If you are gonna put your ENTIRE MOVIE COLLECTION (exceeding 75TBs)...then yes! lol seriously, this is so nuts!

 

[tcgjeukens]

So you trust Dropbox or Apple's iCloud? Why?

Any file in Cloud / Web based solution, paid or unpaid will be subject to terms and conditions ... whom you probably didn't read.
In a world of Big Data any file will be scanned to collect and store meta data.

You might create your own bubble on your own PC and feel safe/ private. Your bubble means others need to put in more effort to scan your data, but even your own PC will be scanned by your OS manufacturer for so called "diagnostic purposes".

Next time you don't read the terms and conditions, do remember the message in the following picture.

 

[btrach144]

This was handled poorly. They shouldn't have punished the 99.9% of users because 0.01% abused the system. They should have thought of a way to prevent people from abusing the system rather than shut it down and make the pricing tier even more expensive per GB. I loved OneDrive even if the Mac sync client stunk and the Windows 10 OneDrive changes stunk.

Now that I think about it, OneDrive has been taking a lot of steps back rather than trying to lead the market. Maybe I should look into dropbox.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Speaking of cloud storage, Apple's free tier should to be at least 25GB considering how much we spend on our Apple devices. I paid them almost €1,000 for my iPhone. They shouldn't want an additional 99c per month because I use it to take some photos I don't wish to lose. And since it probably costs Apple about $2 per year to host my stuff I reckon they can afford to take that on the chin. It'll give me more respect for the company and certainly increase the likelihood I pay them another €1,000 a couple of years down the line. In that sense it makes financial sense for them to improve the free tier.

 

[randian]

I loved OneDrive even if the Mac sync client stunk and the Windows 10 OneDrive changes stunk.

I couldn't even install the Mac client because the geniuses at Microsoft decided not to support case-sensitive file systems. The client will exit instantly with an error if it detects it's running on a case-sensitive file system. Now that they're dropping me from 30GB to 5GB I'll be dropping them.

 

[zed1291]

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.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I work in the media department at my church and we keep all of the media/graphics/videos we create on a shared network drive. We've been doing this since 2008 and have 25TB on it. That drive is filled with 100% of our unique content.

 

[xmichaelp]

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

Yeah, that's what "unlimited" is for. Don't ***** advertise "unlimited" if it's not unlimited.

 

[mrklaw]

I'm glad they removed the unlimited tier. I think they need to invest more time and money improving the functionality and performance of OneDrive instead of its capacity. I've always considered it necessary to pay for and use Dropbox because of its superior performance even though I have access to unlimited OneDrive via my Office365 subscription.

However, i'm not sure reducing the free tier down to a mediocre 5gb is a good move.

Agree. It's like they took the 75TB as an opportunity to roll all the bad news under a reasonable mitigation. Fine, reduce the unlimited (1TB was 'unlimited' for most people's needs anyway), but the reductions on lower levels isn't good and neither is their pricing. If you need more than 50GB you're getting close to the point where you might as well get an office 365 sub - which may even be their desire.

I have office 365 so I'm not too impacted, but the camera roll was a good service from MS and it is a shame to see that go - I don't like how iCloud deletes photos from the cloud if you delete them on the phone and so onedrive photo backup is useful

But 5GB for the free tier is Dropbox levels. If you do that, then why should I move away from Dropbox? I still use dropbox for document sync between my wife and I, and shared access and it just seems better integrated and faster. The one advantage onedrive had was storage space and now they're rolling that back. I'll allow them a slightly slower, clunkier service if they give me more space.

 

[H2SO4]

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I work in the media department at my church and we keep all of the media/graphics/videos we create on a shared network drive. We've been doing this since 2008 and have 25TB on it. That drive is filled with 100% of our unique content.

…any one person. You have compared that to a media department?

 

[xmichaelp]

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

Because they let you? Don't advertise unlimited if you won't adhere to it.

 

[randomgeeza]

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

Prior to the announced changes they stated 'Unlimited'... Unlimited means exactly that. There's no asterix claiming fair use or that Unlimited actually means Limited.

 

[Piggie]

Microsoft have always said they have systems in place to make sure they are not seen as a haven to store massive collections if illegal data.
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?

 

[Azzin]

I've got an Office 365 Home sub and I just checked the settings of the OD app on my phone and it says that I have 10.1TB out of 10.2TB available.

 

[boozeman78]

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

Because they gave me "unlimited storage" when I signed up.

 

[Ash Pole]

Any company that was in the same position as MS would do the same, it's happened with unlimited data plans as well, blame the lowlife abusing the system.

Really? MEGA hands out free 50GB accounts (with end-to-end encryption) just for the asking and has done so for almost 3 years.
So you're telling me Kim Dotcom can afford it but Bill Gates can't?
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. But hey that's cool.....128GB 3.0 thumb drives are now $30 with built in encryption and they're Microsoft tamper proof.

 

[upthetoffees]

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

Does one really have to explain that to you? What didn't you understand about their offer?

 

[PhiLLoW]

So basically the average free user has been cut down from 15 to 5 GB because some special snowflakes uploaded 75TB?

 

[Candlelight]

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I work in the media department at my church and we keep all of the media/graphics/videos we create on a shared network drive. We've been doing this since 2008 and have 25TB on it. That drive is filled with 100% of our unique content.

I work in TV and we have hundreds of TB on various servers BUT NONE OF THEM IN THE CLOUD.

It's more likely they were storing thousands of Blu-Ray and DVD rips on there. Whether they were legit or not I can't say (in NZ you can legally make a digital copy of a DVD as a backup for example). I'm not sure what the Ts and Cs of OneDrive is regarding storing your entire catalogue. I doubt they expect 75TB!