Though as a O365 subscriber this news is unfortunate, this had to been seen coming a long time ago. Microsoft was the sole outlier in large corporate cloud-based storage solutions with the unlimited storage scheme (though 75 TB is frankly quite ridiculous), and even after the change, I fail to see a cheaper solution for 1 TB of cloud space anywhere else.
Amazon's unlimited storage is $60 a year with 3 months of free trial. It has all the apps too. If you don't care to have Office, this is the best choice.
Ridiculous to you, jimhsu. If someone is a high-impact PC gamer who rips all his installation discs to ISO's, 75TB's could be well within the mean of what someone has to use. Really, 1TB of space is too small. A few disc backups, especially if you are a gamer, can take more space than that.
It's outstanding how every articles' comments won't fail to be reduced to gamer bigotry. I'll agree with maximumGPU, what the hell is a high-impact PC gamer?
High-impact gamer huh? Does that sort of person have to wear special impact protection while playing computer games in order to reduce the number of head injuries?
With a typical install media taking around 15 Gb at most, you literally have to be a mental case, some kind of fucked-up digital hoarder, to take up 75 Tb.
I agree.....why would you waste all that time to upload 75 TB, I mean that did say TB and not GB right?? That must of taken atleast a month....if not 2-3 weeks.....Damn. just send it to the RIAA at that point....
Whoever deposited 75TB there was trying to make a case: Nobody with half a brain should ever advertise unlimited storage. Such an offer is unsustainable and therefore unethical, because it can't ever be serious. There are places in this world were you'd be sued (by the competition) for making such an offer, because they'd only have two choices: a) look worse, b) also make an unethical or suicidal offer. With current HDD and flash storage, the cost of storage might actually flatten out rather soon, while bandwidths seem to step up. 10Gbit to your home seem more realistic today than petabytes in your desktop.
Why the hell would someone back up 75 TB of game installs? Are you smoking something? If it's a single player game you play it once, and probably never again. An MP game has a shelf life of a few years and after that you never play it again. There surely aren't more than a dozen games that I'd feel sad about losing. Plus, even if you "lose" your install, you can re-buy the game for a couple bucks after it's been out a few years.
Actually, as someone who handles backups for a business I was thinking maybe some admin thought he/she was clever and decided to put the full backups for the entire company up on OneDrive for redundancy :) It wouldn't be practical but it would be a lot cheaper than actually dedicated enterprise cloud backup services.
I don't care whether they are still better in 1tb price tier or not,I cannot trust a service that cannot stick to a plan for more than a year.I fucking hate MS.They keep changing their service name,price tier.I'm done.how do you know they aren't goint to change it again?
Aye, totally agree. The issue here is that of TRUST. They've totally and royally screwed this one up. I've already moved to S3 but dang: getting my head around Amazon Glacier pricing is doing my head in!
The Microsoft blog post announcing this says that "a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings". In other words, yes, people were storing MKVs on the service - and more importantly, Microsoft is snooping on the details of user behavior. This announcement basically destroys all trust whatsoever in the privacy, security, and reliability of Microsoft's cloud services.
Yeah, I guess I can't speak for everyone, but there was definitely no trust broken in that statement. Being able to analyze the contents stored on their own servers is a right they have to ensure people are adhering to the terms of service. As far as I see, they had no invasion of privacy and did not share any of this content or information with third parties that would suggest any breach of trust.
With all due respect, inighthawki, you have the right to format shift in the real world. The people uploaded their entire movie collections and DVR recordings were doing absolutely NOTHING wrong.
Fair enough - but my point was that Microsoft has a right to know what files are being stored on their servers, and have a right to adjust their policies if they feel people are abusing it. There was no invasion of privacy, nor trust broken.
How is using unlimited storage abuse? It isn't. The whole statement stinks. 75TB is still less than infinity, isn't it? No one forced MS to offer unlimited storage, nor is it relevant WHAT they are storing.
Calling an individual user out - someone who wasn't abusing the system - should break your trust.
But it *is* relevant what they are storing. Unlimited or no, the terms of service are pretty clear about what kinds of content are and are not allowed to be stored on the service. In order to enforce the agreement that those customers willingly agreed to, Microsoft can view the files stored on *their* servers for *their* service.
You bet when there's a 75TB outlier someone is going to dig into whats going on and if theres a ToS breach involved.
They need to know because in certain areas of the world they are legally liable for what is being stored/shared from their service. If someone is distributing illegal content or using their service to commit crimes, Microsoft can either shut them down or potentially be considered an accomplice to the activity.
Sorry but, you're wrong. It's BS for them to need to investigate people's files. What purpose does that really serve? Does it matter what's being backed up? And what does the type of file matter? A backup does just that, it backs up whatever the user needs. It doesn't have to know what the file type is.
I'm sorry, what? You don't think sys admins don't have a right to monitor server storage for unapproved usage? We can run reports on file types, sizes and quantities stored and make judgment calls for the good of the organization and not just put individual users first and let the wild west run wild. Anything on shared storage is subject to review, everyone should know this by now. It doesn't matter whether this is a physical file server or one in the cloud.
CoreLogicCom, this was NOT unapproved usage. Microsoft HAD to have known that some people were going to use this service as a backup everything service in the real world.
This is different. This isn't people putting files in the corporate system. This is backup, pure and simple. It doesn't matter what that backup is. Microsoft has no legal responsibility regarding what files are being backed up any more than Amazon does, in their own quest to know what users are doing.
Don't have a right? It depends on the contract, but there is no special privilege that applies to system admins. That is why we use quotas in the first place. In my country it would be considered a crime if I looked at a users files and I think that's a good policy since I don't want anyone else to look - of course I don't use "the cloud" and encrypt most everywhere.
The 1TB limit is pretty reasonable, but the other reductions are just wrong. Makes me wonder whether Microsoft has bitten off more than it can chew in the cloud storage product space.
There has to be more to the story. While 1 TB as the top tier is plenty for the vast majority of customers and $60/year for the cheapest O365 tier is half of what Google's currently asking for 1TB ($10/mo or 120/year); that some users would abuse the hell out of any completely unlimited tier should have been obvious when they set it up. The decision to either eat the loss from them for marketing reasons or hide an abuse clause in the fine print should've been done then too.
Not offering a paid tier above 1 TB is inexplicable. Yes most customers who need that much online storage are probably medium+ sized business customers and should be steered to Azure Storage (priced per GB used at an effective starting price of $24/tb/mo for 3x replication); but not all of them are.
Beyond that, forcing customers at medium size plans to either cut back on their storage or pay more is insane in a market where we've all been accustomed to getting more space for our dollar every year or so as competition pushes prices down to match cheaper storage. They couldn't've done a better job of writing their competitors FUD for them if they tried.
The worst part is that the reduction affects the free users like myself. I personally utilize the 15GB allotment and the bonus 15GB from camera roll. Personally this is the best free deal for online storage for anyone with a smartphone and/or tablet. Google may offer 15GB up front but having double the amount at OneDrive is hard to beat. And Dropbox can't even hold a candle with their limited 2GB minimum start.
I wonder how long MS can hold on to this ridiculous concept until they revert free capacity to 15+15. Because if they don't, I am removing my photos and videos from their service and placing them in cold storage.
I'm worried about what's going to happen to all my "promoted" GB's of OneDrive storage I've accrued over the years from referrals, promotions and one-time services. I remember I received something like a 5GB bonus for signing up for camera roll years ago, then another 10GB during an XBOX media promotion, then a bonus from adding a Windows Phone, another bonus from a Surface 2, and so on. I'm at 46GB right now of available storage. I'm only using 15GB. I'm just waiting for the day I sign in and I have like 18GB or some BS with 3GB free...
You bet you will! Between the number of Samsung and HTC phones I owned (contract renewal every year) I amassed approx 45Gb in promotional storage. By last year it got reduced to 9Gb. What happened? I just moved it all. This is exactly what's going to happen to OneDrive free users who may get hit by the new ceiling.
you have to be a salesman for dropbox to get that much free space. Spamming referral links on your Facebook and Twitter feed, or creating a bunch of fake emails, and then referring yourself.
it's just not worth the time and effort when most people already need a word processor and a spreadsheet. the average joe now buys office 365 not for the apps, but for the storage.
For just music, you might want to check out Amazon's Music Storage subscription at $25/year. (Different from Prim Music.) It used to be fairly buggy wrt to uploading and matching songs, but the quality has improved over time. I'm happy with it.
Jump through a few hoops and you can upgrade any dropbox account to 5 or 6gb easily (3gb bonus for downloading their photo app, 1gb for downloading the OS X mail app that they bought for some inscrutable reason). Invite a few of your alternative email addresses to join dropbox and that can go higher. Yes it's more stingy than other services, but the number of mobile apps that have dropbox support baked in is huge.
I don't believe that Microsoft did this because of the "sins" of the few. This is just an excuse. Otherwise, what does a few people using many TBs of storage have to do with cutting the minimum levels?cwhat DOS it have to do with eliminating the camera role? What does it have to do with eliminating the other tears of service, and having a new one at higher prices?
I'm pretty sure that Microsoft found that what they were doing was costing them bucks, and they didn't like that, so they went to this. People should understand that storage costs about the same for Microsoft as it does for other vendors. Both Amazon and Google do t care if they make a profit on this or not, so they offer it at very low prices. Apple does care, so they charge a bit more. Microsoft cares as well, but they thought they could do it. They obviously found that they couldn't, but, for some reason, don't want to admit that, so they're finding an excuse.
Stupid. They should just tell the truth, people would be happier.
Oh yeah, as a non paying customer you're really going to show Microsoft by removing all your data and not using OneDrive... C'mon, the only reason these cloud storage services have free tiers is in hopes you'll then upgrade to a payed service. If you don't upgrade then they couldn't give a shit if you go somewhere else. You're not paying, you're not of any benefit to them.
I suspect there are very few people using just OneDrive by itself, majority of users are O365 subscribers, which this really doesn't affect. It's likely the turnover rate of free users is super low, which is why they are throttling back the free space. Microsoft doesn't really lose anything here.
Actually as a case in point I have moved completley from OneDrive. Simply put: free users are potential paying users. Screw them like this and you can be sure they are no more. I am now PAYING for Amazon Glacier. Smart businesses are the ones who eye up the potentially paying customer.
Exactly this. If the reason for the changes are really the 1% who are abusing the system they are handling this all wrong. If they wanted to offer "unlimited" in the same sense that fake "unlimited" plans exist from telcos and cable companies, they should have just put something in the TOS about "reasonable use" and carved out the abusers separately as exceptions. I'm sure automatic usage reporting is already setup, tying that to automated warning emails and account restrictions should be trivial from a development perspective. Punishing only the abusers would not be overly burdensome from a labor/cost perspective. Instead they chose to create a PR nightmare and reverse all the positive momentum they built with the unlimited announcement.
You have at least a year, before you get "screwed". I'm not sure how having data and moving it to cloud storage, and being told to take it back, all for free, "screws you" maybe you should keep your data local, oh, that's not free, hmmm...
Why indeed? Not to mention the hassle of waiting for humongous blocks of 4k files to synch with OneDrive's fairly capped IO transfer rates every time. It would be hell on earth!
meh I guess I'm back to having to back my stuff up somewhere else because I'm slightly over the limit. And not because of the camera roll since phone pics are compressed, but because of my backup of old photos done with an actual camera. The solution I adopted previously was no backup and just risking it.
I don't want the free office 365 year as I would just have the problem again in 1 year. It's a good trick to try and get people to keep paying for it after one year though.
Not sure why we are blaming users who were using the system as advertised. It was advertised as unlimited storage, what's wrong with storing 75TB of data then? If Microsoft didn't want people to store 75TB, they should have advertised it as 10TB or 5TB or whatever they were comfortable with.
As it is, I'm surprised no one talks more about Stream Nation. $20 gets you actually unlimited storage, I've been using it for months, and I have a few terabytes of data stored, and it works fantastic.
If you just need lots of cloud storage and aren't focused on the streaming aspect, Backblaze is only $5/month for unlimited and has a lot of features that folks wary of 'the cloud' may find very desirable (e.g. encryption).
My issue with these small cloud services that offer super great deals is that one day I am going to wake up and all my data is gone because they went bankrupt. I have been using big players like Google and Microsoft for that reason, although perhaps Microsoft is even less reliable. I only have 9 GB on my free OneDrive account but I have slow upload speed and it took me 2 years to accumulate that, so this is very bad for me since I have to switch services and it's gonna take me for ever to do that
Having been a user since the Live Mesh days and using multiple Windows Phones since Wimo7, I have gotten about 45GB of "permanent" space. With this new policy, it is pretty much all gone. I have multiples of 5GBs just for photos alone. Apparently this is how MS treat their loyal customers. First they cripple the app, then they choke you out.
It's certainly a kick in the teeth to Lumia 1020 owners. 11MB a photo at 38MP and those photos quickly mount up. Are we having to back off to 5MP? The only setting in-between is the 16:9 ratio 34MP, and that's a small decrease.
They only just announced the 950 series as well; along with backups plus the vaunted ability to "use your phone as a PC", snap-happy people are going to run out of that 5GB pretty sharpish. Their store still lists "up to 30GB" of OneDrive storage on both the 950 and 950 XL; shouldn't they be changing this?
I am due an upgrade by Christmas. Either I opt for an alternative storage medium, or I ditch MS altogether. Groove gives 100GB, but that totally depends on whether you actually want to pay £9 a month (there isn't any mention as to how Groove is affected, either).
Dick move Microsoft. You had been doing so much right lately too. I'm not denying that the $70 Office 365 option with 1TB is still a good deal if you want office and need a generous amount of online storage. And the 5x1TB you get for $100 for the Home subscription is even better. But even though I'm unlikely to use more than 1TB, the "unlimited" bit pushed me over the edge when I was considering subscribing for the early access to the beta OS X Office apps. I will likely cancel my subscription. Backblaze here I come.
When does this take effect? My account still says I've got the 15+15 allotment for my free account. If I quickly upload ~5GB of data right now to get over the 5GB threshold, does that mean I'll get the 1 year free offer for Office 365?
If they don't want users to use it without limits then they should have told the users there is a limit when they sign up. You can't market an offer as "unlimited" and then complain that users were using too much. They could have had several price tiers and then double the GB for each every 1 or 2 years. Users know what they are paying for, they know what the limits are, users get better deal over time as the $/GB comes down and they continue to use and add to their storage.
I'm currently using 1.12TB. I feel like a hard cap at something like 5TB would be more reasonable to weed out the abusers. If most people are using 5GB or less then the business case should work out.
Luckily this announcement comes after the introduction of Google Photos. I've been using free dropbox(15GB+) and free OneDrive(30GB) over the past couple years to mainly backup my photos/camera roll, Google Drive(17GB) is for my file backups. Looks like I'll be clearing out my free OneDrive account soon.
ps: I know some of you are afraid of Google's free services, but for me, I am okay with the risks, I like the idea of free photos backup for life. Thanks in advance for those of you who will try to warn me that Google will steal all my info, photos, email, map, docs, spreadsheets and other stuff... I know the risk and I chose to stick with Google, because I believe it is the lesser evil of the BIG 3(Microsoft, Apple, Google). You guys can pick your own poison, lol, I've picked mine.
Have you guys looked into other free online storage providers?
Tencent gives you free 10 TB of online storage! And Baidu gives you 2 TB. I tested it myself and seems legit. I didn't put any private info because I'm a bit wary of online Chinese companies, but the market of free storage providers is growing.
In terms of Office docs, are you really going to use 1 TB worth of Office docs? In the last 10 years I dont think I've even amassed 10 GBs of Office docs (Excel/Word/PowerPoint). Maybe if someone had a business and some massive MS-Access databases, but that's not their target for this service right?
"In terms of Office docs, are you really going to use 1 TB worth of Office docs?"
Of course not. OneDrive is used for a lot more than Office docs. Windows 8 and 10 both try to get you to sync ALL your personal files such as photos through OneDrive.
This move is not only incredibly consumer-hostile, it also seems to contradict the whole push for "cloud-first, mobile-first" that CEO Nadella has been spearheading. I think it's likely that it wasn't directly approved at the CEO level, but instead was the brain-fart of some middle manager who was upset his division wasn't as profitable as he wanted (and thus got a lower bonus). Never mind the long-term strategic damage to the Windows ecosystem; that's not his department. This kind of siloing is said to be common at Microsoft.
I honestly wouldn't be too surprised to see Nadella walk this back, at least in part, a couple days down the road.
As strange as it may seem, I think we are going to have to get used to paying for services on the internet. As for providers offering unlimited data I wonder what bandwidth they offer, what good is it being able to store 10TB if you get less than 5mbit/s uploads? Storing Music in the cloud so you can listen to it on your phone just seems unbelievably wasteful of precious mobile bandwidth. But that could just be my warped sense from living in Aus and dealing with pitiful quotas.
Wow, that's bullshit they're ditching the 15GB camera roll.
The only reason I had a lot of iPhones setup for OneDrive is because iCloud Photo Roll is only 5GB, but now so is this. Basically no reason to use it now for many people because iCloud gives the same amount of free space, and its integrated into the OS so works slightly better.
Overall they're really shooting themselves in the foot by screwing over the free tier. 5GB isn't competitive.
All the other changes are reasonable. I think we all suspected when they announced last year "unlimited" storage that it wasn't sustainable. There's always some asshole that is going to put 75GB of segmented ZIP's or something worthless up their, when he could have just used Backblaze for $50/year without all the run-arounds.
I'm really disappointed Microsoft is doing it this way. Just capping the top tiers would solve the problem, but nickeling and diming free users into paying $2/month to get more than 5GB of space is just ridiculous.
Google Drive, DropBox, Copy, and Box marketing teams are going to have a ball slamming this announcement. And with the new prices and restrictions, Amazon S3 is substantially cheaper, and virtually free if you are a Prime member.
I fear this is a sign of things to come from MS. Just wait until they get everyone on Windows 10 and start charging for Windows as a Service to get "improvements" that used to be free in Service Packs.
hmm.. not much I can say really.. I store my data locally.. and only use online storage for the odd file I need viewed by others. For me these services have literally no effect what so ever.
I think this is beyond bad, it's such a huge step back I can't even explain! But I think we can fight this, OneDrive Uservoice site already has a top #1 spot with this issue: "Give us back our storage" https://onedrive.uservoice.com/forums/262982-onedr...
So a certain number of users were taking the 'Unlimted' part literally. So they drastically cut the limit for 365....then they also cut in half the mid tier pay option....and they cut the free option. None of which had anything to do with the Unlimited issues. I guess Microsoft just didn't know what to do with the good press they had been receiving over Windows 10 and figured they had to do something to make people dislike them again.
Oh. So it's unlimited unless you use it. But of course. This shows what's going to happen under Satya Nadella.
The storage thing is just a minor aspect. I think the "free" Windows 10 upgrade is worse. Incessantly pestering paying Windows 7 buyers with shareware like advertising for Windows 10. Trying to beat paying customers into submission, making everyone tired and give up. Once you're in, Msft will change the rules, of course. I got this nasty ad every morning starting my pc up. Called Microsoft's support line because the update that created this was hidden. They put me in a 45 min line, which included three so called service technicians who couldn't explain what had happened, nor had a remedy for it put referring to the next guy, which all ended with a "hold on, I'll be right back" which turned to a final 10 minute silence and then my call was dropped.
They threw a shoe at the former CEO, time for something heavier?
The money feels good And your life you like it well But surely your time will come As in heaven, as in hell
Well.. They offered a "free service" and now they have a lot of users. Time has come to slaughter the fattened cow. It leaves the users with only two choises, upgrade your storage at home or cough up the greens! Nice con,
I *just* signed up for Office 365 a few weeks ago (which I kind of can't believe I did, but anyway...) and it was already reduced to 1TB...I hadn't realized it was ever anything else.
I'm still showing both 15GB free, and 15GB camera roll bonus (among others), though it sounds like they might go away next year.
I don't really care from a certain perspective, as I'm not willing to give third parties access to ALL my files, I can't use it for a lot of types of things anyway, as bandwidth is neither free nor particularly fast.
Still, now that Windows 10 lets you use OneDrive while being logged in to Windows with a *local* account (Windows 8.1 didn't allow that), I'm actually starting to use OneDrive a bit to sync some personal documents around.
Trusting your data to ANY of these cloud storage numbskulls is data suicide. The big contenders add and drop services like circus clowns juggling plates (just look at google's long list of service closures). And the other small time players are just that- schmaltzy bit players that randomly lose data and/or will drop like flies in the next economic crunch because they are barely hanging on now.
I've actually been using free tiers of Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive simultaneously for a while as I have various bonuses on each... 22GB on Dropbox thru referrals, 27GB with Google thru security and temp bonuses, 25GB on OneDrive after being grandfathered in from Live Mesh.
I might just cut OneDrive loose tho, the random plan changes don't seem like a good sign, and having seen the nightmare that is One Drive for business and Team Sites I don't have a ton of confidence in it's basic sync abilities either.
Tighter integration within Windows is nice and all but the others just work more reliably IMO, and Amazon's giving me unlimited JPEG/RAW storage with Prime to boot so...
People actually pay money for cloud storage? Why would you pay money to have a giant corporation sifting through all your data and using it to generate whatever profits they can?
Satisfying the group of consumers that want huge storage at below cost or even for free is not a winning strategy. I hope now they develop their product to target a more serious market: people who are willing to pay a reasonable cost but want a functional, feature-complete and reliable product. I'm happy they raised the price because now they are forced to compete on features.
Except they've actually been cutting down on the features. By all accounts, sync in Windows 10 is worse than in Windows 8 (no placeholders for online files).
I agree they are short on features but that feature is more of a consumer-level feature that makes the product more complicated since it requires OS integration. I don't see businesses clamoring for this feature although I agree it is useful on mobile storage-limited devices.
I agree they are short on features but placeholders is more of a consumer-level feature that makes the product more complicated since it requires OS integration. I don't see businesses clamoring for this feature. In fact Win8 Onedrive required login with a Microsoft account and was then linked to that Onedrive account only! The Win8 Onedrive product was just badly thought out: yes they had a nice feature but it was obviously too hard for them to implement properly.
That's what you get from a closed garden golden prison of "paid services" instead of owning your own stuff.
Once your stuff is in their cloud and you rely on their "'services", like Office 365, they got you by your proverbial balls. They can and will unilaterally change every single agreements made before to their advantages, taking you in hostage, forcing your hand, exactly like they just did to One Drive.
All this is only confirming the fascist Orwellian dictatorship M$ has become in the last decade.
Microsoft, this is fantastic advertising for the new Lumia 950/950XL. Hey, get a new Lumia, but we will cut down your camera roll to 5GB, and there won't be enough space to back up your phone either. I considered upgrading from my Lumia 925, not anymore. The new Nexus phones look fantastic ...
Microsoft may have killed the EULA. Bait and switch is illegal in most US States. Microsoft knows this, which is why they are offering pro-rata rebates. Not close, no cigar nor cigarette butts. The bait served it's purpose, bringing in Office 365 subscriptions. Get the customers in the door and some of them won't leave. This is the VERY thing the that is illegal under Consumer Legislation.
Historically courts have accepted the argument that consumers only lease, not purchase software. However, in this case, Microsoft's behaviour shows such knowing contempt for Consumer Law and the subject matter, Microsoft Office, is so significant, that a Court may well be prepared to establish precedent. If so, their EULA can't save them any more than the fine print on any other prohibited practice. Dead letter EULAs - thanks Microsoft, the industry will thank you.
I think this should serve as a cautionary tale to users of all services of this kind. They can hold your data hostage for ransom this way if they just cut your storage space when they feel like it, and the contract isn't worth anything. Sure you can sue them but until it makes it to court your data is gone, so the only solution is to try and get it out - surprise surprise this can also be restricted especially since net neutrality is a joke, as well as connection speeds in many places.
I really wonder though how someone got 75TB uploaded, even at Gigabit that's over a week at maximum speed.
But I saw this coming when I first heard of the subscription office / storage combination.
I'm not surprised at all. Actually, I'm more surprised people would want to leave their precious data in the hands of such a company - with the record they have with peoples' data.
Okay... wow, Microsoft... taking care of their customers as always. Now, imagine such actions/tactics used on a much larger scale... lets say, an operating system that is used on over 90% of desktop type computers... sure it was FREE today, but still - they have yet to be clear about "free" and more about the "Windows 10" upgrade program.
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nathanddrews - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
75TB? Is someone changing their .MKV extensions to .XLSX? LOLEven my decently sized collection of Blu-ray backups only take ~30TB.
nathanddrews - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Also, typo in cell C3. "$50 GB for $2/month"Brett Howse - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
fixed thanksjimhsu - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Though as a O365 subscriber this news is unfortunate, this had to been seen coming a long time ago. Microsoft was the sole outlier in large corporate cloud-based storage solutions with the unlimited storage scheme (though 75 TB is frankly quite ridiculous), and even after the change, I fail to see a cheaper solution for 1 TB of cloud space anywhere else.jashunt - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Amazon's unlimited storage is $60 a year with 3 months of free trial. It has all the apps too. If you don't care to have Office, this is the best choice.https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/pricing
Lerianis - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Ridiculous to you, jimhsu. If someone is a high-impact PC gamer who rips all his installation discs to ISO's, 75TB's could be well within the mean of what someone has to use.Really, 1TB of space is too small. A few disc backups, especially if you are a gamer, can take more space than that.
maximumGPU - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
What the hell is a high-impact PC gamer?AndrewJacksonZA - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
@maximumGPU: PC gamers who want to sound more important than they are. ;-)IanHagen - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
It's outstanding how every articles' comments won't fail to be reduced to gamer bigotry. I'll agree with maximumGPU, what the hell is a high-impact PC gamer?damianrobertjones - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Why the *&%^ are you storing game rips in the cloud? Are you asking to be fined for piracy?BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
High-impact gamer huh? Does that sort of person have to wear special impact protection while playing computer games in order to reduce the number of head injuries?Michael Bay - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
With a typical install media taking around 15 Gb at most, you literally have to be a mental case, some kind of fucked-up digital hoarder, to take up 75 Tb.dsraa - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
I agree.....why would you waste all that time to upload 75 TB, I mean that did say TB and not GB right?? That must of taken atleast a month....if not 2-3 weeks.....Damn. just send it to the RIAA at that point....Notmyusualid - Monday, November 9, 2015 - link
It is not 'all that time' with multi-gigabit wan connections, which are being deployed now.Notmyusualid - Monday, November 9, 2015 - link
Back of the beer mat calculation; puts it around 83.333hrs for a 2Gb/s pipe.Morawka - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
maybe old titles,, all the new titles coming out are 40GB plus each.. Black Ops 3: 50GB, Battlefield 4: 65GB, GTAV: 48GB.abufrejoval - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
Whoever deposited 75TB there was trying to make a case: Nobody with half a brain should ever advertise unlimited storage. Such an offer is unsustainable and therefore unethical, because it can't ever be serious. There are places in this world were you'd be sued (by the competition) for making such an offer, because they'd only have two choices: a) look worse, b) also make an unethical or suicidal offer.With current HDD and flash storage, the cost of storage might actually flatten out rather soon, while bandwidths seem to step up. 10Gbit to your home seem more realistic today than petabytes in your desktop.
Funny that...
Notmyusualid - Monday, November 9, 2015 - link
Same with mobile data plans. Put an actual figure on it - or some will take all they can.melgross - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
So? HDDs are cheap these days. Back up locally.Nagorak - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Why the hell would someone back up 75 TB of game installs? Are you smoking something? If it's a single player game you play it once, and probably never again. An MP game has a shelf life of a few years and after that you never play it again. There surely aren't more than a dozen games that I'd feel sad about losing. Plus, even if you "lose" your install, you can re-buy the game for a couple bucks after it's been out a few years.blackcrayon - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Actually, as someone who handles backups for a business I was thinking maybe some admin thought he/she was clever and decided to put the full backups for the entire company up on OneDrive for redundancy :) It wouldn't be practical but it would be a lot cheaper than actually dedicated enterprise cloud backup services.Notmyusualid - Monday, November 9, 2015 - link
Crossed my mind too.You can be sure they encrypted those backups, giving MS no info at all what was 'there'.
Redowan - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
I don't care whether they are still better in 1tb price tier or not,I cannot trust a service that cannot stick to a plan for more than a year.I fucking hate MS.They keep changing their service name,price tier.I'm done.how do you know they aren't goint to change it again?K_Space - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
Aye, totally agree. The issue here is that of TRUST. They've totally and royally screwed this one up. I've already moved to S3 but dang: getting my head around Amazon Glacier pricing is doing my head in!JDG1980 - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
The Microsoft blog post announcing this says that "a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings". In other words, yes, people were storing MKVs on the service - and more importantly, Microsoft is snooping on the details of user behavior. This announcement basically destroys all trust whatsoever in the privacy, security, and reliability of Microsoft's cloud services.inighthawki - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Yeah, I guess I can't speak for everyone, but there was definitely no trust broken in that statement. Being able to analyze the contents stored on their own servers is a right they have to ensure people are adhering to the terms of service. As far as I see, they had no invasion of privacy and did not share any of this content or information with third parties that would suggest any breach of trust.Lerianis - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
With all due respect, inighthawki, you have the right to format shift in the real world. The people uploaded their entire movie collections and DVR recordings were doing absolutely NOTHING wrong.inighthawki - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Fair enough - but my point was that Microsoft has a right to know what files are being stored on their servers, and have a right to adjust their policies if they feel people are abusing it. There was no invasion of privacy, nor trust broken.nico_mach - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
How is using unlimited storage abuse? It isn't. The whole statement stinks. 75TB is still less than infinity, isn't it? No one forced MS to offer unlimited storage, nor is it relevant WHAT they are storing.Calling an individual user out - someone who wasn't abusing the system - should break your trust.
Mushkins - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
But it *is* relevant what they are storing. Unlimited or no, the terms of service are pretty clear about what kinds of content are and are not allowed to be stored on the service. In order to enforce the agreement that those customers willingly agreed to, Microsoft can view the files stored on *their* servers for *their* service.You bet when there's a 75TB outlier someone is going to dig into whats going on and if theres a ToS breach involved.
nils_ - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
Would you feel the same way about your e-mail?melgross - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Why do they have to know? Because they say they need to? What difference does it make what kind of file is being backed up?Mushkins - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
They need to know because in certain areas of the world they are legally liable for what is being stored/shared from their service. If someone is distributing illegal content or using their service to commit crimes, Microsoft can either shut them down or potentially be considered an accomplice to the activity.Notmyusualid - Monday, November 9, 2015 - link
Nope - you can't, by definition, abuse unlimited.melgross - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Sorry but, you're wrong. It's BS for them to need to investigate people's files. What purpose does that really serve? Does it matter what's being backed up? And what does the type of file matter? A backup does just that, it backs up whatever the user needs. It doesn't have to know what the file type is.CoreLogicCom - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
I'm sorry, what? You don't think sys admins don't have a right to monitor server storage for unapproved usage? We can run reports on file types, sizes and quantities stored and make judgment calls for the good of the organization and not just put individual users first and let the wild west run wild. Anything on shared storage is subject to review, everyone should know this by now. It doesn't matter whether this is a physical file server or one in the cloud.Lerianis - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
CoreLogicCom, this was NOT unapproved usage. Microsoft HAD to have known that some people were going to use this service as a backup everything service in the real world.melgross - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
This is different. This isn't people putting files in the corporate system. This is backup, pure and simple. It doesn't matter what that backup is. Microsoft has no legal responsibility regarding what files are being backed up any more than Amazon does, in their own quest to know what users are doing.nils_ - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
Don't have a right? It depends on the contract, but there is no special privilege that applies to system admins. That is why we use quotas in the first place. In my country it would be considered a crime if I looked at a users files and I think that's a good policy since I don't want anyone else to look - of course I don't use "the cloud" and encrypt most everywhere.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Yeah, okay, I'm gathering that no other service does this then. /sP.s. I'd rather they check..l. you know... to CATCH and detain naughty picture/video distributers
nils_ - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
That pretty much renders the services useless for anyone who stores any data that is confidential.crimson117 - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
The 1TB limit is pretty reasonable, but the other reductions are just wrong. Makes me wonder whether Microsoft has bitten off more than it can chew in the cloud storage product space.DanNeely - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
There has to be more to the story. While 1 TB as the top tier is plenty for the vast majority of customers and $60/year for the cheapest O365 tier is half of what Google's currently asking for 1TB ($10/mo or 120/year); that some users would abuse the hell out of any completely unlimited tier should have been obvious when they set it up. The decision to either eat the loss from them for marketing reasons or hide an abuse clause in the fine print should've been done then too.Not offering a paid tier above 1 TB is inexplicable. Yes most customers who need that much online storage are probably medium+ sized business customers and should be steered to Azure Storage (priced per GB used at an effective starting price of $24/tb/mo for 3x replication); but not all of them are.
Beyond that, forcing customers at medium size plans to either cut back on their storage or pay more is insane in a market where we've all been accustomed to getting more space for our dollar every year or so as competition pushes prices down to match cheaper storage. They couldn't've done a better job of writing their competitors FUD for them if they tried.
keitaro - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
The worst part is that the reduction affects the free users like myself. I personally utilize the 15GB allotment and the bonus 15GB from camera roll. Personally this is the best free deal for online storage for anyone with a smartphone and/or tablet. Google may offer 15GB up front but having double the amount at OneDrive is hard to beat. And Dropbox can't even hold a candle with their limited 2GB minimum start.I wonder how long MS can hold on to this ridiculous concept until they revert free capacity to 15+15. Because if they don't, I am removing my photos and videos from their service and placing them in cold storage.
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
A lot of people have free dropbox accounts with 16+gb of storage. I'd look into that. There's got to be some promotions.From all of the promotions in past years, I think mine is 26gb.
Samus - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
I'm worried about what's going to happen to all my "promoted" GB's of OneDrive storage I've accrued over the years from referrals, promotions and one-time services. I remember I received something like a 5GB bonus for signing up for camera roll years ago, then another 10GB during an XBOX media promotion, then a bonus from adding a Windows Phone, another bonus from a Surface 2, and so on. I'm at 46GB right now of available storage. I'm only using 15GB. I'm just waiting for the day I sign in and I have like 18GB or some BS with 3GB free...K_Space - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
You bet you will! Between the number of Samsung and HTC phones I owned (contract renewal every year) I amassed approx 45Gb in promotional storage. By last year it got reduced to 9Gb. What happened? I just moved it all. This is exactly what's going to happen to OneDrive free users who may get hit by the new ceiling.Morawka - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
you have to be a salesman for dropbox to get that much free space. Spamming referral links on your Facebook and Twitter feed, or creating a bunch of fake emails, and then referring yourself.it's just not worth the time and effort when most people already need a word processor and a spreadsheet. the average joe now buys office 365 not for the apps, but for the storage.
Murloc - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
those promotions only give you temporary space so you're back to square one at some point.University students get lots of free space because of their yearly challenge.
lmcd - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Already posted but agreed, and this ruins my setup. I took the bait and put my music on OneDrive, and Microsoft's going to make me regret it.lmcd - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
No edit comment but that's 70 GB of music, which is a lot but not insane. Time for an Android phone and Google Play again, it seems.evancox10 - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
For just music, you might want to check out Amazon's Music Storage subscription at $25/year. (Different from Prim Music.) It used to be fairly buggy wrt to uploading and matching songs, but the quality has improved over time. I'm happy with it.Morawka - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
Google's music does this for free, and it's unlimited. Matches even pirated music (not that i condone it or anything)Glaurung - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Jump through a few hoops and you can upgrade any dropbox account to 5 or 6gb easily (3gb bonus for downloading their photo app, 1gb for downloading the OS X mail app that they bought for some inscrutable reason). Invite a few of your alternative email addresses to join dropbox and that can go higher. Yes it's more stingy than other services, but the number of mobile apps that have dropbox support baked in is huge.melgross - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
I don't believe that Microsoft did this because of the "sins" of the few. This is just an excuse. Otherwise, what does a few people using many TBs of storage have to do with cutting the minimum levels?cwhat DOS it have to do with eliminating the camera role? What does it have to do with eliminating the other tears of service, and having a new one at higher prices?I'm pretty sure that Microsoft found that what they were doing was costing them bucks, and they didn't like that, so they went to this. People should understand that storage costs about the same for Microsoft as it does for other vendors. Both Amazon and Google do t care if they make a profit on this or not, so they offer it at very low prices. Apple does care, so they charge a bit more. Microsoft cares as well, but they thought they could do it. They obviously found that they couldn't, but, for some reason, don't want to admit that, so they're finding an excuse.
Stupid. They should just tell the truth, people would be happier.
freeskier93 - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Oh yeah, as a non paying customer you're really going to show Microsoft by removing all your data and not using OneDrive... C'mon, the only reason these cloud storage services have free tiers is in hopes you'll then upgrade to a payed service. If you don't upgrade then they couldn't give a shit if you go somewhere else. You're not paying, you're not of any benefit to them.I suspect there are very few people using just OneDrive by itself, majority of users are O365 subscribers, which this really doesn't affect. It's likely the turnover rate of free users is super low, which is why they are throttling back the free space. Microsoft doesn't really lose anything here.
K_Space - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
Actually as a case in point I have moved completley from OneDrive. Simply put: free users are potential paying users. Screw them like this and you can be sure they are no more. I am now PAYING for Amazon Glacier. Smart businesses are the ones who eye up the potentially paying customer.K_Space - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
and judging by the backlash on the net; they havent just lost the potentially paying users but also a number those who are on their paid tiers.Bob Todd - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Exactly this. If the reason for the changes are really the 1% who are abusing the system they are handling this all wrong. If they wanted to offer "unlimited" in the same sense that fake "unlimited" plans exist from telcos and cable companies, they should have just put something in the TOS about "reasonable use" and carved out the abusers separately as exceptions. I'm sure automatic usage reporting is already setup, tying that to automated warning emails and account restrictions should be trivial from a development perspective. Punishing only the abusers would not be overly burdensome from a labor/cost perspective. Instead they chose to create a PR nightmare and reverse all the positive momentum they built with the unlimited announcement.lmcd - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
This reduction actually just screwed me, and I'm probably going to quit using Microsoft products over it.Da W - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
A gazillion people yelled they would quit MS product in the past years, yet the stock is still up.nico_mach - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Because they still sell to businesses, where there is no choice.WhisperingEye - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
You have at least a year, before you get "screwed". I'm not sure how having data and moving it to cloud storage, and being told to take it back, all for free, "screws you" maybe you should keep your data local, oh, that's not free, hmmm...Michael Bay - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Good luck finding anything comparable.jashunt - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Not really for those professionals who create media like 4K video. In a couple years, 1TB will be too small for many.Gunde - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Why would ostensibly professional users utilize consumer-grade cloud storage solutions?IanHagen - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Why indeed? Not to mention the hassle of waiting for humongous blocks of 4k files to synch with OneDrive's fairly capped IO transfer rates every time. It would be hell on earth!nico_mach - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Why use consumer grade laptops? Cars? Why use Excel instead of real data software? MS has made a mint on 'consumer grade' stuff being 'good enough'.More importantly, regular consumers make 4k and we generally expect things to get better and cheaper or they need regulation.
Murloc - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
meh I guess I'm back to having to back my stuff up somewhere else because I'm slightly over the limit.And not because of the camera roll since phone pics are compressed, but because of my backup of old photos done with an actual camera.
The solution I adopted previously was no backup and just risking it.
I don't want the free office 365 year as I would just have the problem again in 1 year. It's a good trick to try and get people to keep paying for it after one year though.
GoodBytes - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
You forgot to mention that Microsoft Grove Music subscribers gets 100GB OneDrive.BMNify - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
What are these guys doing with 75TB OneDrive storage? Idiots spoiling it for everyone else But 1TB should anyway be enough for normal people.aryonoco - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Not sure why we are blaming users who were using the system as advertised. It was advertised as unlimited storage, what's wrong with storing 75TB of data then? If Microsoft didn't want people to store 75TB, they should have advertised it as 10TB or 5TB or whatever they were comfortable with.As it is, I'm surprised no one talks more about Stream Nation. $20 gets you actually unlimited storage, I've been using it for months, and I have a few terabytes of data stored, and it works fantastic.
Murloc - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
which service it is matters less, they always change it up depending on whether they want to gain marketshare or not lose money.Bob Todd - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
If you just need lots of cloud storage and aren't focused on the streaming aspect, Backblaze is only $5/month for unlimited and has a lot of features that folks wary of 'the cloud' may find very desirable (e.g. encryption).n3m4c - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
My issue with these small cloud services that offer super great deals is that one day I am going to wake up and all my data is gone because they went bankrupt. I have been using big players like Google and Microsoft for that reason, although perhaps Microsoft is even less reliable. I only have 9 GB on my free OneDrive account but I have slow upload speed and it took me 2 years to accumulate that, so this is very bad for me since I have to switch services and it's gonna take me for ever to do thatpt376 - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Having been a user since the Live Mesh days and using multiple Windows Phones since Wimo7, I have gotten about 45GB of "permanent" space. With this new policy, it is pretty much all gone. I have multiples of 5GBs just for photos alone. Apparently this is how MS treat their loyal customers. First they cripple the app, then they choke you out.silverblue - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
It's certainly a kick in the teeth to Lumia 1020 owners. 11MB a photo at 38MP and those photos quickly mount up. Are we having to back off to 5MP? The only setting in-between is the 16:9 ratio 34MP, and that's a small decrease.They only just announced the 950 series as well; along with backups plus the vaunted ability to "use your phone as a PC", snap-happy people are going to run out of that 5GB pretty sharpish. Their store still lists "up to 30GB" of OneDrive storage on both the 950 and 950 XL; shouldn't they be changing this?
I am due an upgrade by Christmas. Either I opt for an alternative storage medium, or I ditch MS altogether. Groove gives 100GB, but that totally depends on whether you actually want to pay £9 a month (there isn't any mention as to how Groove is affected, either).
Bob Todd - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Dick move Microsoft. You had been doing so much right lately too. I'm not denying that the $70 Office 365 option with 1TB is still a good deal if you want office and need a generous amount of online storage. And the 5x1TB you get for $100 for the Home subscription is even better. But even though I'm unlikely to use more than 1TB, the "unlimited" bit pushed me over the edge when I was considering subscribing for the early access to the beta OS X Office apps. I will likely cancel my subscription. Backblaze here I come.Gigaplex - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
When does this take effect? My account still says I've got the 15+15 allotment for my free account. If I quickly upload ~5GB of data right now to get over the 5GB threshold, does that mean I'll get the 1 year free offer for Office 365?tygrus - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
If they don't want users to use it without limits then they should have told the users there is a limit when they sign up. You can't market an offer as "unlimited" and then complain that users were using too much. They could have had several price tiers and then double the GB for each every 1 or 2 years. Users know what they are paying for, they know what the limits are, users get better deal over time as the $/GB comes down and they continue to use and add to their storage.titanmiller - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
I'm currently using 1.12TB. I feel like a hard cap at something like 5TB would be more reasonable to weed out the abusers. If most people are using 5GB or less then the business case should work out.amdwilliam1985 - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Luckily this announcement comes after the introduction of Google Photos.I've been using free dropbox(15GB+) and free OneDrive(30GB) over the past couple years to mainly backup my photos/camera roll, Google Drive(17GB) is for my file backups. Looks like I'll be clearing out my free OneDrive account soon.
ps: I know some of you are afraid of Google's free services, but for me, I am okay with the risks, I like the idea of free photos backup for life. Thanks in advance for those of you who will try to warn me that Google will steal all my info, photos, email, map, docs, spreadsheets and other stuff... I know the risk and I chose to stick with Google, because I believe it is the lesser evil of the BIG 3(Microsoft, Apple, Google). You guys can pick your own poison, lol, I've picked mine.
Michael Bay - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Nothing is free. If you`re not _afraid_ that google is selling you to advertisers wholesale, sure, go ahead.webdoctors - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Have you guys looked into other free online storage providers?Tencent gives you free 10 TB of online storage! And Baidu gives you 2 TB. I tested it myself and seems legit. I didn't put any private info because I'm a bit wary of online Chinese companies, but the market of free storage providers is growing.
In terms of Office docs, are you really going to use 1 TB worth of Office docs? In the last 10 years I dont think I've even amassed 10 GBs of Office docs (Excel/Word/PowerPoint). Maybe if someone had a business and some massive MS-Access databases, but that's not their target for this service right?
Gigaplex - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
"In terms of Office docs, are you really going to use 1 TB worth of Office docs?"Of course not. OneDrive is used for a lot more than Office docs. Windows 8 and 10 both try to get you to sync ALL your personal files such as photos through OneDrive.
JDG1980 - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
This move is not only incredibly consumer-hostile, it also seems to contradict the whole push for "cloud-first, mobile-first" that CEO Nadella has been spearheading. I think it's likely that it wasn't directly approved at the CEO level, but instead was the brain-fart of some middle manager who was upset his division wasn't as profitable as he wanted (and thus got a lower bonus). Never mind the long-term strategic damage to the Windows ecosystem; that's not his department. This kind of siloing is said to be common at Microsoft.I honestly wouldn't be too surprised to see Nadella walk this back, at least in part, a couple days down the road.
atcronin - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
As strange as it may seem, I think we are going to have to get used to paying for services on the internet.As for providers offering unlimited data I wonder what bandwidth they offer, what good is it being able to store 10TB if you get less than 5mbit/s uploads?
Storing Music in the cloud so you can listen to it on your phone just seems unbelievably wasteful of precious mobile bandwidth. But that could just be my warped sense from living in Aus and dealing with pitiful quotas.
Samus - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Wow, that's bullshit they're ditching the 15GB camera roll.The only reason I had a lot of iPhones setup for OneDrive is because iCloud Photo Roll is only 5GB, but now so is this. Basically no reason to use it now for many people because iCloud gives the same amount of free space, and its integrated into the OS so works slightly better.
Overall they're really shooting themselves in the foot by screwing over the free tier. 5GB isn't competitive.
All the other changes are reasonable. I think we all suspected when they announced last year "unlimited" storage that it wasn't sustainable. There's always some asshole that is going to put 75GB of segmented ZIP's or something worthless up their, when he could have just used Backblaze for $50/year without all the run-arounds.
I'm really disappointed Microsoft is doing it this way. Just capping the top tiers would solve the problem, but nickeling and diming free users into paying $2/month to get more than 5GB of space is just ridiculous.
Google Drive, DropBox, Copy, and Box marketing teams are going to have a ball slamming this announcement. And with the new prices and restrictions, Amazon S3 is substantially cheaper, and virtually free if you are a Prime member.
I fear this is a sign of things to come from MS. Just wait until they get everyone on Windows 10 and start charging for Windows as a Service to get "improvements" that used to be free in Service Packs.
just4U - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
hmm.. not much I can say really.. I store my data locally.. and only use online storage for the odd file I need viewed by others. For me these services have literally no effect what so ever.LuxZg - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
I think this is beyond bad, it's such a huge step back I can't even explain!But I think we can fight this, OneDrive Uservoice site already has a top #1 spot with this issue:
"Give us back our storage"
https://onedrive.uservoice.com/forums/262982-onedr...
LuxZg - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
This uservoice post gets about 1000 votes per hour, and many comments, I wonder what will Microsoft answer to this...Btw, since I had to split my post/comment on uservoice in 2 comments, I wanted to make it easier to read...
Here is a whole comment to this issue:
http://itflame.blogspot.hr/2015/11/give-us-back-ou...
And also here is my earlier comment on all shortcomings of OneDrive, from a year ago, 95+% never fixed:
http://itflame.blogspot.hr/2014/11/please-improve-...
Jumangi - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
So a certain number of users were taking the 'Unlimted' part literally. So they drastically cut the limit for 365....then they also cut in half the mid tier pay option....and they cut the free option. None of which had anything to do with the Unlimited issues. I guess Microsoft just didn't know what to do with the good press they had been receiving over Windows 10 and figured they had to do something to make people dislike them again.One step forward and two back. The Microsoft way.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
"First, subscribers to Office 365 consumer will have their storage allotment reduced from unlimited to 1 TB"I was only ever offered 1TB with my subscription(Uk based)
marvdmartian - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Just like the local drug pusher. Lure them in with "free" samples, get 'em hooked, then sock it to them!Gadgety - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Oh. So it's unlimited unless you use it. But of course. This shows what's going to happen under Satya Nadella.The storage thing is just a minor aspect. I think the "free" Windows 10 upgrade is worse. Incessantly pestering paying Windows 7 buyers with shareware like advertising for Windows 10. Trying to beat paying customers into submission, making everyone tired and give up. Once you're in, Msft will change the rules, of course. I got this nasty ad every morning starting my pc up. Called Microsoft's support line because the update that created this was hidden. They put me in a 45 min line, which included three so called service technicians who couldn't explain what had happened, nor had a remedy for it put referring to the next guy, which all ended with a "hold on, I'll be right back" which turned to a final 10 minute silence and then my call was dropped.
They threw a shoe at the former CEO, time for something heavier?
The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell
Sn3akr - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Well.. They offered a "free service" and now they have a lot of users.Time has come to slaughter the fattened cow.
It leaves the users with only two choises, upgrade your storage at home or cough up the greens! Nice con,
Wolfpup - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
I *just* signed up for Office 365 a few weeks ago (which I kind of can't believe I did, but anyway...) and it was already reduced to 1TB...I hadn't realized it was ever anything else.I'm still showing both 15GB free, and 15GB camera roll bonus (among others), though it sounds like they might go away next year.
I don't really care from a certain perspective, as I'm not willing to give third parties access to ALL my files, I can't use it for a lot of types of things anyway, as bandwidth is neither free nor particularly fast.
Still, now that Windows 10 lets you use OneDrive while being logged in to Windows with a *local* account (Windows 8.1 didn't allow that), I'm actually starting to use OneDrive a bit to sync some personal documents around.
BadCommand - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Trusting your data to ANY of these cloud storage numbskulls is data suicide. The big contenders add and drop services like circus clowns juggling plates (just look at google's long list of service closures). And the other small time players are just that- schmaltzy bit players that randomly lose data and/or will drop like flies in the next economic crunch because they are barely hanging on now.Impulses - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
I've actually been using free tiers of Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive simultaneously for a while as I have various bonuses on each... 22GB on Dropbox thru referrals, 27GB with Google thru security and temp bonuses, 25GB on OneDrive after being grandfathered in from Live Mesh.I might just cut OneDrive loose tho, the random plan changes don't seem like a good sign, and having seen the nightmare that is One Drive for business and Team Sites I don't have a ton of confidence in it's basic sync abilities either.
Tighter integration within Windows is nice and all but the others just work more reliably IMO, and Amazon's giving me unlimited JPEG/RAW storage with Prime to boot so...
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
People actually pay money for cloud storage? Why would you pay money to have a giant corporation sifting through all your data and using it to generate whatever profits they can?Lolimaster - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Just use Mega, 50GB free.CSMR - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Satisfying the group of consumers that want huge storage at below cost or even for free is not a winning strategy. I hope now they develop their product to target a more serious market: people who are willing to pay a reasonable cost but want a functional, feature-complete and reliable product. I'm happy they raised the price because now they are forced to compete on features.JDG1980 - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
Except they've actually been cutting down on the features. By all accounts, sync in Windows 10 is worse than in Windows 8 (no placeholders for online files).CSMR - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
I agree they are short on features but that feature is more of a consumer-level feature that makes the product more complicated since it requires OS integration. I don't see businesses clamoring for this feature although I agree it is useful on mobile storage-limited devices.CSMR - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
I agree they are short on features but placeholders is more of a consumer-level feature that makes the product more complicated since it requires OS integration. I don't see businesses clamoring for this feature. In fact Win8 Onedrive required login with a Microsoft account and was then linked to that Onedrive account only! The Win8 Onedrive product was just badly thought out: yes they had a nice feature but it was obviously too hard for them to implement properly.Ramon Zarat - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
That's what you get from a closed garden golden prison of "paid services" instead of owning your own stuff.Once your stuff is in their cloud and you rely on their "'services", like Office 365, they got you by your proverbial balls. They can and will unilaterally change every single agreements made before to their advantages, taking you in hostage, forcing your hand, exactly like they just did to One Drive.
All this is only confirming the fascist Orwellian dictatorship M$ has become in the last decade.
rungholt - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
Microsoft, this is fantastic advertising for the new Lumia 950/950XL. Hey, get a new Lumia, but we will cut down your camera roll to 5GB, and there won't be enough space to back up your phone either. I considered upgrading from my Lumia 925, not anymore. The new Nexus phones look fantastic ...denem - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
Microsoft may have killed the EULA. Bait and switch is illegal in most US States. Microsoft knows this, which is why they are offering pro-rata rebates. Not close, no cigar nor cigarette butts. The bait served it's purpose, bringing in Office 365 subscriptions. Get the customers in the door and some of them won't leave. This is the VERY thing the that is illegal under Consumer Legislation.Historically courts have accepted the argument that consumers only lease, not purchase software. However, in this case, Microsoft's behaviour shows such knowing contempt for Consumer Law and the subject matter, Microsoft Office, is so significant, that a Court may well be prepared to establish precedent. If so, their EULA can't save them any more than the fine print on any other prohibited practice. Dead letter EULAs - thanks Microsoft, the industry will thank you.
nils_ - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link
I think this should serve as a cautionary tale to users of all services of this kind. They can hold your data hostage for ransom this way if they just cut your storage space when they feel like it, and the contract isn't worth anything. Sure you can sue them but until it makes it to court your data is gone, so the only solution is to try and get it out - surprise surprise this can also be restricted especially since net neutrality is a joke, as well as connection speeds in many places.I really wonder though how someone got 75TB uploaded, even at Gigabit that's over a week at maximum speed.
Notmyusualid - Monday, November 9, 2015 - link
Say what you will...But I saw this coming when I first heard of the subscription office / storage combination.
I'm not surprised at all. Actually, I'm more surprised people would want to leave their precious data in the hands of such a company - with the record they have with peoples' data.
Either way - HA.
Belard - Wednesday, November 11, 2015 - link
Okay... wow, Microsoft... taking care of their customers as always.Now, imagine such actions/tactics used on a much larger scale... lets say, an operating system that is used on over 90% of desktop type computers... sure it was FREE today, but still - they have yet to be clear about "free" and more about the "Windows 10" upgrade program.