Microsoft Microsoft drops unlimited OneDrive storage after people use it for unlimited storage

[Reefa]

A little over a year ago, Microsoft announced that paid Office 365 Home and Personal subscribers would get, as part of their subscription, unlimited cloud storage on its OneDrive service. Yesterday, the company announced that it wasn't going to do that after all. It turns out that if you offer unlimited storage to people, a few of them actually take you at your word and trust that you are truly offering unlimited storage, and then they start using it.

Explaining the backtracking, the new blog post complains that a small number of paying customers were using OneDrive to store backups of multiple PCs and large collections of movies and TV shows. Some of these outliers used more than 75TB of space, which Microsoft says is 14,000 times the average (putting the average OneDrive user at about 5.5GB).

Instead, paid users will now receive only 1TB of storage, a reversion to the service's previous limit. The company is also removing its old 100GB and 200GB paid plans, replacing them with a 50GB plan at $1.99 a month. Free OneDrive storage is also being cut early next year, from 15GB to 5GB, and there's no more 15GB bonus for storing your camera roll in OneDrive. Going forward, OneDrive users with more than 1TB of data will have a one year grace period during which they can keep their large storage, after which they must cut back to below 1TB. Similarly, free users with more than 5GB of data will have a year after the change is made to reduce their usage to below the 5GB level.

Paying users not happy at the reduction in storage will be offered pro-rated refunds.

Although this was announced yesterday, we have had occasional reports over the last few months from paying Office 365 subscribers telling us that their OneDrive accounts were capped at 1TB. According to these users, customer service reps were telling them there was no unlimited storage and that 1TB was the limit. As such, it looks as if this change may have been in effect for some time prior to the decision to go public.

This change is frankly rather alarming. That people were using its unlimited storage service for unlimited storage has apparently caught Microsoft off guard. Even though this is a problem that virtually every "unlimited" product suffers—for example, the Verizon FiOS "unlimited" customer using 77TB of bandwidth a month or every mobile operator throttling its heaviest "unlimited" users—it appears that Microsoft did not take occasional heavy users into account when making its offer, and so it has decided to kill it off.

This comes as Microsoft has made it easier than ever to use lots of OneDrive storage; Groove Music knows how to play music stored on OneDrive, so it's worth uploading all your songs to Microsoft's cloud so that you can play them from anywhere.

Cloud backup provider Backblaze, whom we've written about a number of times over the years, offers unlimited backup storage for $5 per month. The company tells us that it does so profitably. Yes, occasionally some users use many more times the average. 75TB users certainly aren't going to be profitable for Microsoft; even before redundancy and replication is taken into account, that's around $1,800 of raw disk capacity, and a subscriber paying $70 a year isn't going to come anywhere close to covering that cost. But if Backblaze's accountants and engineers can provide cost-effective storage on an unlimited basis that can accommodate rare extremely heavy users, it makes one wonder why Microsoft cannot—and why the company apparently didn't check the viability of offering unlimited storage before the offer was made, rather than after.

This isn't the only way that Microsoft has made OneDrive less attractive over the last few months, either. In Windows 8.1, the integrated OneDrive client was really quite clever, using local "placeholder" files to represent data that was available in the cloud but not yet downloaded locally. Opening these files from Explorer or most applications would cause the download to occur automatically, enabling the cloud storage to act as a kind of seamless extension of local storage.

The system wasn't perfect, with some issues around making the behavior clear and some compatibility limitations. These problems were not insurmountable, but instead of fixing them, Microsoft simply ditched the entire concept in Windows 10. The Windows 10 OneDrive client reverts to the same kind of syncing behavior as is used by, for example, Dropbox, requiring much more manual management of what gets synced and what doesn't.

The company has made vague promises to produce an updated OneDrive client that improves the sync experience, but as things stand right now, using OneDrive in Windows 10 is markedly worse than using it in Windows 8.1. Dropping the unlimited storage similarly makes it worse. And killing off the camera roll extension means that one of the most widely applicable paths into using OneDrive for one's cloud storage needs is gone. Does Microsoft even want us to use OneDrive anymore?

If it were any other service, we'd almost feel suspicious that the poor management and reduction in capabilities were precursors to winding the entire thing up. OneDrive is too important to Windows and Office 365 for that to be in the cards, but it nonetheless makes us wonder why this core service appears to be getting worse and why the company is willing to undermine the trust people had in the service by changing the terms of its service in a way that has no benefits, only downsides. This doesn't just reflect badly on OneDrive. It reflects badly on Microsoft's entire position as a provider of cloud services: it calls into question Microsoft's ability to deliver what it said it would deliver.

arstechnica.com

[oliverjia]

Typical way of "solving" problems by a MBA.

Yes, it's OK to punish the greedy bastards who exploit the "unlimited" offer, but it's totally bullshit to reduce free users' quota to 5GB. Are you fxxking kidding me, MS? Yeah, when the average usage of Onedrive 5.7GB for free users, all of them would be forced to buy space from MS since soon only 5GB will be offered. OneDrive will be the new big cash cow for Microsoft. Yay@!!!@

[sanjoa]

Microsoft drops unlimited OneDrive storage after people use it for unlimited storage

:doh: what did Microsoft supposed people will do with unlimited storage?

[CODYQX4]

There should be a law that says you can't call it "unlimited" unless you plan on it being unlimited. It's always a lie, so why say it other than to dupe people with false marketing. My "unlimited" AT&T plan is 22GB, and was a pathetic 5GB not long ago. Are these morons so focused solely "next quarter, even if the world burns next year", that they can't foresee whether it's sustainable.

Also, I've had 25GB with them for a long time, then bonuses got me up to 40GB. Now they want to downgrade me to 5GB? Apple offers 5GB and their 50GB tier is half the cost of MS 50GB tier, and Apple's long been considered stingy on storage.

Google will give you 15GB. Smaller companies will give even more.

Hell, they're moving it lower than ever. They had it set for 7GB for new users and grandfathered 25GB in.

No wonder nobody trusts the cloud. I suppose my 6 month Amazon Cloud Drive I got with my router will expire, auto-bill me, but then it will only be 400GB which my encrypted Arq backup is a bit bigger than.

Nobody should be allowed to say "unlimited" if there's any gimmicks (same thing with "forever"). Not one year after I got on AT&T, the Unlimited plan they were doling out like candy was suddenly unsustainable and we're all leeches for having it and will be pushed out by any means they can.

There isn't a shred of truth in marketing when "unlimited" = don't go over 1TB and we can change the "limit" with nothing more than hand-waving.

Same thing with lifetime licenses being revoked. Don't give them away for free then. Nobody thinks about anything but the next month.

[shamu726]

They'll probably backtrack and increase the storage limits while saying how they're always listening to their customers' feedback.

But really, 5GB from 15GB?? Even my photo collection takes up a few GBs.

[HX1]

DO NOT for the sake of my account and the virgin ears of this forum bring up AT&T and their imposed bandwidth cap for DSL...

BUT.. on the Office 365 note.. every time I seen it advertised, I seen 1 TB.. so unlimited... not for sure what is going on.. unless this was something going back years ago.

I only need 11.5 TB of storage space, plus another probable 3.5 TB on OneDrive.. I don't know where these people would get off saying something crazy like this.. LOL :P ...

Last month I had network transfers equally and still counting at 111015 GB on Lan and another 45526 on Wireless.. I hardly budged my Data plan however.. which is capped at 2.5 GB but is reasonable for what I pay.

I will say this... and it is probably the point here...

Todays world does not and will not eventually revolve around storage directly on our own devices. Network Locations, and online storage which will not be destroyed and can be plugged into easily when we change or add devices and setup.. or even for a central location available to access our data and entertainment.. is not going away.. and the need is growing as well as the number of people out there who use it.. Bottom line..

Companies who offer these services stand to make a long term 'KILLING' from offering connections to these services.. BUT if they do not upgrade the service lines and methods.. allow for reasonable pricing, and increased bandwidth usage caps.. they will blow away in the wind. It only states one thing.. They do not have the hardware and services available in which the computer and device user of today seeks, nor do they intend to try to keep these customers by offering changes to these plans in the meantime...

Over the past 30 years you would think that large companies, and especially monopolies like AT&T, would have invested in the future of service delivery, not completely failed on that note..

There are businesses, individuals, families, students, hobbyist, developers... you name it.. all of these people need internet connectivity.

It is time to take down another dinosaur, another monopoly,.. and come up with something new and innovative to take its place to make a way for the road ahead. Learning how we implement and use our data, and the fact that more and more people have data that they have to use and universally as well as manage is an everyday thing.

Investment, Expansion, and growth...

[CODYQX4]

DO NOT for the sake of my account and the virgin ears of this forum bring up AT&T and their imposed bandwidth cap for DSL...

BUT.. on the Office 365 note.. every time I seen it advertised, I seen 1 TB.. so unlimited... not for sure what is going on.. unless this was something going back years ago.

I only need 11.5 TB of storage space, plus another probable 3.5 TB on OneDrive.. I don't know where these people would get off saying something crazy like this.. LOL :P ...

Last month I had network transfers equally and still counting at 111015 GB on Lan and another 45526 on Wireless.. I hardly budged my Data plan however.. which is capped at 2.5 GB but is reasonable for what I pay.

I will say this... and it is probably the point here...

Todays world does not and will not eventually revolve around storage directly on our own devices. Network Locations, and online storage which will not be destroyed and can be plugged into easily when we change or add devices and setup.. or even for a central location available to access our data and entertainment.. is not going away.. and the need is growing as well as the number of people out there who use it.. Bottom line..

Companies who offer these services stand to make a long term 'KILLING' from offering connections to these services.. BUT if they do not upgrade the service lines and methods.. allow for reasonable pricing, and increased bandwidth usage caps.. they will blow away in the wind. It only states one thing.. They do not have the hardware and services available in which the computer and device user of today seeks, nor do they intend to try to keep these customers by offering changes to these plans in the meantime...

Over the past 30 years you would think that large companies, and especially monopolies like AT&T, would have invested in the future of service delivery, not completely failed on that note..

There are businesses, individuals, families, students, hobbyist, developers... you name it.. all of these people need internet connectivity.

It is time to take down another dinosaur, another monopoly,.. and come up with something new and innovative to take its place to make a way for the road ahead. Learning how we implement and use our data, and the fact that more and more people have data that they have to use and universally as well as manage is an everyday thing.

Investment, Expansion, and growth...

Monopolies have no reason to upgrade. so they stagnate and the government helps them stay monopolies and together they help make the cost of enter all but impossible.

It's why I have the absolute best internet I can get at a whopping 50Mbps, and just a hop skip jump away, someone's getting 6X that for less. It's why my other phone pays 1/3 of that Home Internet cost, for a pathetic 5GB of Cellular Data.

They're the most ass-backwards, conniving little scumbags. They're trying to hard to push me to Shared Data plans, under the illusion of being cheaper. What they don't say is that it costs $45 per line which at the lowest share tier is a break even (and no more unlimited for me). This is because of contract, and the alternative is Next. The cheapest way in the long run is for me to just eat the cost of a new phone each year, and if I sell it next year, it's more in pocket than paying per month and giving your old phone up. Alternatively I hand that phone down instead of having to buy a new one. Either option beats paying the carrier monthly for the phone.

How the hell does my 4 line AT&T phone bill cost more than my Gas, Electric, and Water combined anyway?