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

[Max(IT)]

As usual, the vast mass of honest people pay for the idiotic behavior of a minority... 75 TB of cloud backups.

" 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.

Microsoft is doing that with OneDrive since the beginning ...
There are several stories about accounts permanently banned due to inappropriate contents (porn) in the last few years....

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

Don't know about Dropbox, but surely Apple isn't looking in your iCloud storage.

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.

Partially correct, but Microsoft is doing that since the beginning with OneDrive.

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

iCloud plans are very good today.

 

[zed1291]

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

Companies use these kinds of services too.

 

[peterdevries]

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.

This is factually incorrect. My personal collection of about 800 DVDs would go a long way into that direction (ripping them for personal use is legal in The Netherlands. We pay a fee for that on storage capacity) and coupled with a DVR that is recording a few shows a day, it would take only a few weeks to get to 75 TB. There are many more people that have similar libraries and that doesn't even include the massive music libraries that some people have.

 

[RockSpider]

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.

Kim Dotcom, really, you're comparing a criminal with MS, please. Look I'm not happy either, I've got around 15GB floating around on Onedrive which I don't particularly want to pay for but I've got two NAS which I'll start using more again and cut back on the cloud stuff.
Problem with people is you give them an inch and they take 70 Terrabytes, blame them.

 

[zed1291]

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!

None of ours are in the cloud either. But I'm just offering up an answer for a legitimate reason other than illegal movies to fill 75TB with.

 

[RockSpider]

This is factually incorrect. My personal collection of about 800 DVDs would go a long way into that direction (ripping them for personal use is legal in The Netherlands. We pay a fee for that on storage capacity) and coupled with a DVR that is recording a few shows a day, it would take only a few weeks to get to 75 TB.

No illegal activity involved.

800 DVDs is only just over 3 TB, recording on a DVR would likely take around a year to amount to 72TB. If people are putting 75TB in the cloud it's illegal, and even if it's not, it's not right.

 

[C DM]

" 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.

It wasn't for that. People are clinging on technicalities just on principle.

A buffet advertising all you can eat option shouldn't put up with a group of competitive eaters coming in everyday and cleaning out most of their food supply not leaving much left. At some point they will simply stop offering an all you can eat option as is their right to do so.

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

Far too many things in life get spoiled because of too many people who are just out to squeeze every last thing out of whatever they can possibly get to.

 

[jameskatt]

OneDrive was never unlimited as there were rather large limitations on the individual file sizes one could have. That said, I'm cancelling my subscription. There's no reason to invest in a cloud storage where the managers are ok with limiting capacities when convenient. It makes no sense as a customer, why invest?

For 1 TB of storage, OneDrive is CHEAP.

OneDrive for Business is also more private than any other form of storage since the encryption keys are in your possession, not Microsoft.

Unlimited Storage is always limited. No one can afford to give away or even cheaply, unlimited storage.
There is a price to pay for the hardware and electricity you use for storing data in the cloud.

I wish though that Microsoft would provide a 5 TB tier.

 

[gnasher729]

" 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.

What makes you think that? All they have to do is take a look at support calls "One of twelve PC backups isn't working". "Our company has been backing up all their 200 PCs with your unlimited backup, and now I can't read any of the data". "I have problems accessing one of my 300 DVDs that I backed up".

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.

What? A DVD contains on average 8 GB of data. That's just 9,000 DVDs. Now I will admit that anyone who bought 9,000 DVDs is a serious horder and should have his head examined, but it's affordable to many people. Especially if you regularly visit second hand shops and buy any DVD that they have. It's easier with Bluray. (I wonder why the Safari spelling checker tries to replace Bluray with Blurry. Apple doesn't seem to like Bluray).

THEN MICROSOFT SHOULDN'T HAVE CALLED IT UNLIMITED.

Well it was unlimited. And now they changed it. I would assume that they don't call it unlimited anymore.

 

[Candlelight]

None of ours are in the cloud either. But I'm just offering up an answer for a legitimate reason other than illegal movies to fill 75TB with.

No but my point was anyone working with media wouldn't use cloud storage. They'd use NAS arrays or storage servers qualified for the bandwidth needed.

 

[Sinfonist]

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 have 12TB of disk across various devices, all legal. 6 backups of that would be pretty close to 75TB...

 

[Substance90]

You were entitled to it when it was unlimited because microsoft didnt factor in how ridiculous the outliners might be. Now they have factored it in, changed their plans, and you are no longer entitled to 75TB of storage. Its no big deal. Microsoft wear the big pants, and make decisions for their own bottom line.

But why do you immediately presume someone not trusting microsoft to snoop on your cloud data, would think the others are any better? Some of us are pessimistic enough to not trust any of them, and have little to no emotional attachment to these mega-corporations.

OUTLIER you mean Anyway, it's still a really cheap move from Microsoft.

 

[hybroid]

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

Purely because the service was sold as "unlimited". Seems everyone forgets what this word means.

 

[xmichaelp]

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.

There's no such thing as abusing UNLIMITED internet.

Stop being such an apologist to lame business practices. Either offer unlimited or don't advertise it as such.

 

[Robstevo]

Purely because the service was sold as "unlimited". Seems everyone forgets what this word means.

It went sold, it was free. Also the good thing is people can simply vote with there wallets and leave if they want to. They aren't tied to a 2 year plan or something. Simples

 

[farewelwilliams]

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

as opposed to 75tb of...wait, what legitimate office files do you have that can reach 75tb?

 

[mrklaw]

For 1 TB of storage, OneDrive is CHEAP.

OneDrive for Business is also more private than any other form of storage since the encryption keys are in your possession, not Microsoft.

Unlimited Storage is always limited. No one can afford to give away or even cheaply, unlimited storage.
There is a price to pay for the hardware and electricity you use for storing data in the cloud.

I wish though that Microsoft would provide a 5 TB tier.

If you have office 365 that is effectively 6TB as each user gets 1TB and you can share access amongst each other. So you could cobble together 6TB using different email addresses etc. And even if you never used office it'd be good value.

 

[farewelwilliams]

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

Your input = no thanks!

so you don't mind an intern at microsoft looking through every single file stored by every customer?

got it.

 

[markodru]

So that means if I upload more than 5GB data on my free OneDrive cloud by the end of 2015, I will receive a free one-year subscription to Office 365???

 

[farewelwilliams]

So you'd be okay with people abusing something you give away for free, I doubt it very much. Plenty of other companies have had to pull back data allowances etc because a few have abused the system.

my point is, there is a way to see if a user is using 75tb without looking through the files. obviously, anyone using 75tb is abusing the service. no need to see the contents of the 75tb.

 

[MacHiavelli]

Microsoft is an amateur company that produces amateur hardware and amateur software for the ignorant and stupid people of the world.

Bewildering that anyone trusts Microsoft, given all the years that it has produced poorly designed and poorly manufactured products, backed by meaningless marketing nonsense.

People see the words "Office Professional" and seem to think that in using MS products they are professionals and power users, when they are in fact using amateur software to do amateur clerical work.

Open your eyes — Microsoft has nothing of any value to offer to anyone with even one brain cell. It just wants you as a cash cow: wasting good money on snake-oil rubbish.

 

[RockSpider]

Microsoft is an amateur company that produces amateur hardware and amateur software for the ignorant and stupid people of the world.

Bewildering that anyone trusts Microsoft, given all the years that it has produced poorly designed and poorly manufactured products, backed by meaningless marketing nonsense.

People see the words "Office Professional" and seem to think that in using MS products they are professionals and power users, when they are in fact using amateur software to do amateur clerical work.

Open your eyes — Microsoft has nothing of any value to offer to anyone with even one brain cell. It just wants you as a cash cow: wasting good money on snake-oil rubbish.

I think you're getting Microsoft mixed up with Apple.

 

[RockSpider]

There's no such thing as abusing UNLIMITED internet.

Stop being such an apologist to lame business practices. Either offer unlimited or don't advertise it as such.

I'd say they were more naive than lame, try to do the right thing and some will abuse it, just like an all you can eat restaurant, people will sneak the food to their friends.

 

[Zoolevation]

I don't need unlimited cloud storage, my 5400RPM HDD is all I need.

 

[navaira]

If that ridiculous excuse was actually true, the simple way of shutting down the 75 TB uploaders (who thought unlimited actually meant unlimited, silly people!) would be to reduce the Unlimited plan to 5 TB and leave the rest intact.