Microsoft lowering *all* existing OneDrive(Free) accounts to 5GB on July 13, 2016

[Briggsy]

 

Just after we heard of changes to Outlook, Microsoft have quietly emailed some/many of us about upcoming changes to OneDrive. This change does not come as news to many, as evidenced by this Arstechnica article from November 2015, but it appears that the changes are now rolling out.

 

Quote

Changes to OneDrive  
 

We want to let you know about some upcoming changes to OneDrive. On 7/13/2016, 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  

Looking at the OneDrive Plans page, creating a free OneDrive account is indeed limited to 5GB now. Also noteworthy is the complete discontinuation of the 15GB camera roll bonus.

 

as per the FAQ

Quote

A new 50 GB plan has replaced our previous 100 GB and 200 GB paid plans.

We’re also no longer planning to offer unlimited storage to Office 365 Home, Personal, or University subscribers. Starting now, those subscriptions will include 1 TB of OneDrive storage.

 

NOTE: If you already have a paid subscription that does not have unlimited storage, these announced changes do not affect your base storage amount nor any storage bonuses you might have, as long as your subscription is active.

 

If you have a free OneDrive plan and will be over your storage quota as a result of these changes:

 - If you are a free user and have over 5 GB of content in your OneDrive, you will receive an email with an offer to claim a free 1-year subscription to Office 365 Personal*, which includes 1 TB of storage.

 - If you do not claim this offer, you will need to purchase additional storage or remove some of your files. Otherwise, 90 days after you receive your first notice, your account will become read-only.

 - If you are over quota after the 90 days, you will still have access to your files for 9 months. You can view and download them. However, you will not be able to add new content.

 - If after 9 months you are still over quota, your account will be locked. That means that you will not be able to access the content in your OneDrive until you take action.

 - If after 6 more months you fail to take action, your content may be deleted.

I would hate to be a business user currently enjoying the unlimited storage with Many TB's of data on OneDrive, only to find out that my cloud storage is being cut down to 1TB. That is potentially disruptive. It also seems like they are sneakily suggesting to OneDrive Free users that they should try to go over the 5GB limit, so they will get 1 year free of Office 365. Sneaky indeed.

 

 

Although I am not personally affected by this (I'm completely tied into the google ecosystem), I would feel a little annoyed if I were using the Free 15+15GB OneDrive and Microsoft tells me my storage is being reduced to 5GB in a few months. It's not a classic case of bait and switch because we're talking about a free service here, but the intent is obviously to get people onto the $2/month 50GB storage plan, and potentially into the office 365 ecosystem. There are other free cloud storage services out there you can move your data to, but I imagine that in some cases people will not know about this change, and lose piles of photo's or other stuff they've backed up.

[zMeul]

haven't got anything, yet

also, my OneDrive free account has 30GB storage space

[Briggsy]

2 minutes ago, zMeul said:

haven't got anything, yet

also, my OneDrive free account has 30GB storage space

you probably have the 15GB camera roll bonus as well.

[zMeul]

4 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

you probably have the 15GB camera roll bonus as well.

indeed I do

[Trixanity]

It's not like this change came out of the blue. They announced it a fairly long time ago and free users could claim their current limit through a simple link and acceptance of an agreement. To clarify: those who used the offer could keep their current limit whether that was 15 or 30 GB. So this change only affects new users or those who didn't pay attention.

 

Not that I agree with this change however. 

[Sakkura]

MS has every right to do this, but why would anyone use onedrive now? Even without the reduction it's not popular. 

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, AlexTheRose said:

Microsoft has had a really poor track record when it comes to innovation and making new ideas happen. It’s their curse in a way, and honestly they probably would’ve bit the dust long ago if it weren’t for Windows.

Microsoft seems to be the best at taking good ideas, and implementing them in the worst way possible.

 

I'd seriously like to know what retard is making all of these horrible decisions.

[hogfather]

31 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

I'd seriously like to know what retard is making all of these horrible decisions.

It's the same 'retard' that is responsible for keeping their data centre from bursting at the seems from lack of storage space.  I think the retards are the one that abused the unlimited storage space and screwed it up for everyone else.  It's always like that with any unlimited service.  

Storage is a decent sized business as there is never enough of it. 

I don't use OneDrive nor any MS tools, but if I were to sign up today knowing that I only get 5 gigs of space where as in the very near past I could have gotten 30 gigs I would not be impressed.

 

 

[Trik'Stari]

6 minutes ago, hogfather said:

It's the same 'retard' that is responsible for keeping their data centre from bursting at the seems from lack of storage space.  I think the retards are the one that abused the unlimited storage space and screwed it up for everyone else.  It's always like that with any unlimited service.  

Storage is a decent sized business as there is never enough of it. 

I don't use OneDrive nor any MS tools, but if I were to sign up today knowing that I only get 5 gigs of space where as in the very near past I could have gotten 30 gigs I would not be impressed.

 

 

They could just expand the data centre. Or build more of them.

 

But that would eat into those precious profit margins, and we can't have that. This is a clear case of choosing "screw the customer" over "providing a good product/service". And yes, they have a right to do that.

 

But we, as consumers, have a right to criticize them for it, and choose another product/service that is better, which pretty much everyone is going to do.

[Arty]

9 Months read only........ WOW that bs..........

 

 

Google Drive FTW, good thing i only use onedrive as a backup for my google drive.

 

2$ for 50GB hhaha

G-Drive  2$ for 100 GB, MS has gotta be high af with this move. 

[GoodBytes]

8 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

They could just expand the data centre. Or build more of them.

 

But that would eat into those precious profit margins, and we can't have that.

If people are willing to pay, why not?

 

Say you manufacture a screw driver. You sell it at 10$, but the demand is so high, people are willing to pay 50$ for it... well would it not be stupid to not charge 50$?

 

Anyway, if you need storage accessible anywhere, then you can setup OwnCloud. It is free (for personal usage), and you are set. Just need to know your IP, or get a domain and set it up. They have an app on all devices.

[ShiftHitTheFan]

Meh.

Already have 2 years of 2tb on Google drive free from my Google maps contributions, . and 2 years of 365 free from my college.

 

Looks like I'm just going to have transfer the 8 gigs from Microsoft to Google.

[Trik'Stari]

12 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

If people are willing to pay, why not?

 

Say you manufacture a screw driver. You sell it at 10$, but the demand is so high, people are willing to pay 50$ for it... well would it not be stupid to not charge 50$?

 

Anyway, if you need storage accessible anywhere, then you can setup OwnCloud. It is free (for personal usage), and you are set. Just need to know your IP, or get a domain and set it up. They have an app on all devices.

Indeed.

 

I am just laughing at Microsoft for taking the "ruin the service/product" route instead of simply investing more heavily in that service/product, and continuing to offer said customer experience.

 

Or to put it simply: "Demand is too high, ruin the product so the demand isn't as high and we don't have as many customers".

 

It's retarded thinking. My dad encounters it all the time in the manufacturing sector he works in. I mean hell, Gmail offers a free 15gb of email storage.

[Arty]

7 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

. I mean hell, Gmail offers a free 15gb of email storage.

and starting last year that add 2GB onto your account every year

up to 19Gb + free 1TB from local guides!

[Trik'Stari]

3 minutes ago, Arty said:

and starting last year that add 2GB onto your account every year

up to 19Gb + free 1TB from local guides!

Now Google understands how to run a good business. Don't stress about losing a few percent of profit margin, and offer the best product/service possible, and sit back and watch the money roll in.

[chiwas]

Someone is actually using OneDrive?

[GoZone]

I use it and it's pretty neat and easy to organize also you can bundle with 1TB along in Microsoft Office, don't know current rates now, hate that they are doing this though.

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

Indeed.

 

I am just laughing at Microsoft for taking the "ruin the service/product" route instead of simply investing more heavily in that service/product, and continuing to offer said customer experience.

 

Or to put it simply: "Demand is too high, ruin the product so the demand isn't as high and we don't have as many customers".

 

It's retarded thinking. My dad encounters it all the time in the manufacturing sector he works in. I mean hell, Gmail offers a free 15gb of email storage.

I think they reduced the amount too much. They should have matched with with the competition, or provides bonuses for getting a Microsoft product. For example, you have 15GB, and you are boosted to 20GB if you buy a Surface line product, or Windows 10 Mobile device, and what ever else that uses OneDrive in the future.

 

The unlimited storage they used to offer was just asking to shot in the foot. A very poor managerial decision. Anything unlimited fails, including web hosting that offers Unlimited something, as someone will take advantage of it, and then your website crawls, as it is all on a shared server. I have never seen anything unlimited work. When Microsoft and Google were at war on storage, when Microsoft went unlimited, Google didn't match, and limited itself to 1TB, and for good reasons, as mentioned.

 

Microsoft's OneDrive is good, has a lot of advantages over Google, and many don't know them, such as lighter (but still pretty feature complete) web version of Office free, to properly view, and edit documents unlike Google. But there is more they need to do beside marketing, and that is improve their service to make it undeniable offer. For example, they can implement File History on ALL files, not just on Office docs.

[suicidalfranco]

i miss mega 2.0 and their free 50 gigs

[elfensky]

I remember back around November or December 2015, that MS had a website you could sign-up to so you would keep your 15+15Gb (which I currently use and want to keep using)...

 

Does this affect the people who opted in there as well, or only the ones that missed it?

[elfensky]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

i miss mega 2.0 and their free 50 gigs

What do you mean? The website and service is still live, last I checked, and working properly...

[suicidalfranco]

1 minute ago, ElfenSky said:

What do you mean? The website and service is still live, last I checked, and working properly...

no longer under kim dotcom, taken over by some chinese company

[elfensky]

7 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

no longer under kim dotcom, taken over by some chinese company

 

Aah, didn't know that. Don't really care tho, as long as it works, idgaf... What happened to Kim tho?

[suicidalfranco]

7 minutes ago, ElfenSky said:

 

Aah, didn't know that. Don't really care tho, as long as it works, idgaf... What happened to Kim tho?

planning to launch mega 3.0 while trying to get his seized assets back while trying not to get extradited to the US. Nothing big i'd say 

[GeekJump]

so you're saying I just stuff my onedrive storage with random shit to go over my limit and I will get a year of 365 free? >_> hmmmm

 

the only files I have in my onedrive are some old word docs from school and a 5 min video of sloths growling....don't ask