MS OneDrive Drastic Storage Limit Reduction

[Amethyst]

I don't know how many folks use MS OneDrive, but they're drastically reducing storage limits. Can other cloud storage services be far behind?

"We want to let you know about some upcoming changes to OneDrive. On August 10, 2016, the amount of storage that comes with OneDrive will change from 15 GB to 5 GB. We are also discontinuing the 15 GB camera roll bonus. You can learn more at our FAQ.
There is no action you need to take, because your OneDrive account is currently below the new storage limits. Even though you aren't currently affected, we want to keep you updated on all important changes to OneDrive. If you'd like to check your account, you can visit the Storage page.
We realize these are big changes to a service you rely on. We want to apologize for any inconvenience they may cause you. We made a difficult decision, but it's one that will let us sustainably operate OneDrive into the future.
Thank you for using OneDrive.
– The OneDrive Team"

[ziggy29]

Well, a lot of businesses wanted you to deemphasize local storage and put your stuff on the cloud, and gave a lot of cheap or free cloud storage (the first hit's always free, right?), but may be pulling back now that a lot of stuff *is* on the cloud.

Anyway, it looks like MS has backed off of that a bit and partially reversed this course, but requiring users to jump through some hoops to keep their higher limits:

OneDrive storage limit dropping to 5GB in July - SlashGear

As an aside, anyone who subscribes to Office 365 (on up to five PCs or Macs) currently gets 1 TB of OneDrive storage as long as they are subscribed.

[Sunset]

I did the small jump through hoop to keep my 15G of storage, just in case I ever wanted to use it.
I still don't use it at all.

[MRG]

I don't get it, they thin provision all the storage. It costs zero till you used it.

Guess at current utilization they are projecting too much growth.

On the flip side; at some point the bags are no longer free.

[kcowan]

This is typical MS screwup. Most companies offer some free and then you pay when you need more. This company offers more than you need to encourage usage and then comes the gotcha. Never trust the Borg!

Luckily there are so many alternatives that, other than the PITA, all will be OK.

(I wondered why they wanted to put just one attached picture on OneDrive? Now I know!)

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan This is typical MS screwup. Most companies offer some free and then you pay when you need more. This company offers more than you need to encourage usage and then comes the gotcha. Never trust the Borg! Luckily there are so many alternatives that, other than the PITA, all will be OK. (I wondered why they wanted to put just one attached picture on OneDrive? Now I know!)

You are smarter than me! I don't trust the (Microsoft) Borg either, but thought they'd share my files with three letter agencies or advertising folks before they'd limit cloud storage. I was completely off base I guess, and I am surprised and even startled to read that OneDrive is cutting back on storage.

I haven't ever used OneDrive. It's difficult not to, with Windows 10, but I just kept refusing and have no OneDrive account or Microsoft account, either.

I love how cheap external hard drives and large capacity thumb drives are these days. We have many options for storage.

[easysurfer]

After upgrading to Win 10, I quickly disabled one drive from showing up in my system tray. Happy to keep my stuff locally.

[Rustic23]

I use Onedrive. In fact, DW's photos are on there. 19.5 gig! I got the same letter. Interesting thing is I have 50G of storage free now. Not sure where it all came from. Some with an original Office 365 sign up maybe. As her photos are also on a NAS drive local, I'm just going to wait it out and see what they do. They also offered a free Office 365 for a year, and that gets 1T of storage. I might take them up on that and see what happens next year when it runs out.

[bUU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRG I don't get it, they thin provision all the storage. It costs zero till you used it.

For-profit businesses charge based on the value to customers, not as a set percentage of cost. As cloud storage becomes more valuable to customers, because of how many ways the typical consumer finds to make good use of it, we can expect to see higher prices that the prices that were charged (or not charged, for that matter) that were prevalent while they were serving early adopters and working to motivate new customers to start using the service. Charging new customers for storage over 5GB is effectively a price increase. The grandfathering in of existing customers is interesting. I suppose that helps mitigate the PR backlash typically encountered when free services go paid.

[Totoro]

Very puzzling behavior from Redmond if they want to stay in the storage space.

If anyone is looking for alternatives:

• Box.com: 10GB free
• Dropbox.com: 2GB free
• Google Drive: 15GB free
• Amazon prime member: unlimited photos
• Copy: 15GB free

Big list here: 19 free cloud storage options | Network World


Some are ad supported, some aren't (box.com. dropbox).

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Totoro Very puzzling behavior from Redmond if they want to stay in the storage space. If anyone is looking for alternatives: Box.com: 10GB free Dropbox.com: 2GB free Google Drive: 15GB free Amazon prime member: unlimited photos Copy: 15GB free Big list here: 19 free cloud storage options | Network World Some are ad supported, some aren't (box.com. dropbox).

Or, our high rollers can get a variety of 64GB thumb drives for $15 or less on Amazon.

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R Or, our high rollers can get a variety of 64GB thumb drives for $15 or less on Amazon.

With 128 gb usb flash 3.0 drives selling for less than $30 and 5 tb drives for about $130 its not hard to keep stuff locally on line, and back it up with flash drives. But then I don't have a smart phone, so no need to exchange info with it. (Being retired I stay at home to access the web, and because my car has on star leave the plain old cell phone at home locally.)
I actually used group policy in windows 8 to turn off one drive as well. Since I only have a 1 mbit/sec connection download/upload times could get huge).

[kcowan]

Then there is the risk of a fire like in Fort Mac to take down all your devices and storage.

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan Then there is the risk of a fire like in Fort Mac to take down all your devices and storage.

The nice thing about usb flash drives is you can put them in a safe deposit box and rotate the devices every so often. Or leave a drive with a friend to hold, but for city wide fires safe deposit boxes are better since the vaults tend to be better protected against fire and the like. Have the flash drives in a case and put them with the papers you would take on a 30 min warning evacuation. Note that amazon now has 256 gb flash drives (usb 3.0) for about $70. Or if your still working keep a copy at work.

[growerVon]

As a big MS fanboi, I find this change frustrating and mishandled. The OneDrive blog cites some abusers who uploaded huge media libraries, but MS is rolling other plan changes into this move that negatively impact the main user base - well beyond the cited abusers. Links below for those who want to dig in further.
https://blog.onedrive.com/onedrive_changes/
https://support.office.com/en-us/art...rs=en-US&ad=US

I will say that increasing monetization of online services falls in-line with the new CEO's stated focus on software & services. An unpopular move with users that will increase revenue and close some costly corner-cases...

[bUU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Totoro Very puzzling behavior from Redmond if they want to stay in the storage space.

The only advantage - other than forcing advertising on folks or charging money - is federation advantage. The fact is, the list you provided were not "alternatives" to me, but rather "the rest of the places where I have cloud storage accounts to serve various needs" so it isn't even a matter of getting someone's business from someone else (if you can even count free storage as a "business").

Quote:

Originally Posted by growerVon I will say that increasing monetization of online services falls in-line with the new CEO's stated focus on software & services. An unpopular move with users that will increase revenue and close some costly corner-cases...

I expect to see early adopter advantages regularly erode over time.

[Totoro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R Or, our high rollers can get a variety of 64GB thumb drives for $15 or less on Amazon.

Only downside (beyond the large cash outlay ) is you lose easy-share-with-others.

[DayDreaming]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Totoro Very puzzling behavior from Redmond if they want to stay in the storage space. If anyone is looking for alternatives: Box.com: 10GB free Dropbox.com: 2GB free Google Drive: 15GB free Amazon prime member: unlimited photos Copy: 15GB free Big list here: 19 free cloud storage options | Network World Some are ad supported, some aren't (box.com. dropbox).

FYI, Copy ended their cloud storage service earlier this year.
I had been using them but had to migrate my stuff elsewhere.

[kcowan]

When we got our 3rd Apple device, our iCloud went up to 6.5 GB so we had to pay $0.99/mo then they increased it to $1.29/mo for 50GB.