Onedrive storage down to 5GB from 15 + 15GB

[mikewarner]

The way Microsoft has done this is the issue and the problem. Of course, hindsight and a night sleeping on the problem tells me never, ever believe an unlimited package is that. Microsoft is not the first and won't be the last company to trip over this issue. Also, their rationale that there are 75+TB users out there and also lots of 10TB+ users doesn't really show us the distribution of these (versus less than, says, 500GB users) in order to understand their storage versus revenue problem. Scything everybody down to 5GB is draconian especially when you you have not committed the sin of using 10TB to over 75TB over storage on your unlimited OneDrive.

One concern is that a newbie to Windows Phone may not invest in OneDrive (as there are cheaper/different/preferential options for them) so how does their new Lumia 950/XL, let alone older Lumia's and other WP phones back-up or save photos? There isn't the option to point to somewhere else, is there? Also, if you don't have a microSD option you perhaps can't have your data with you all of the time (as you only have 8, 16 or 32 GB storage) so photos, docs and music is going to fill you up quickly. These scenarios could make WIndows Phone less appealing against the competition and why buy a phone where you can't have what you want on it? I've no problem in paying for storage but if I operated a NAS drive for my personal cloud storage could I back-up or copy photos and videos to it, let alone using another vendor cloud option?

After the great success of the October show, the sighting and shipment dates (here in Europe) of the new Lumia's and the nearly ready W10 Mobile it's all somewhat deflating and begs the question why Microsoft were so heavy handed with this?

 

[djeire84]

I think you should get 50GB free OneDrive storage for buying a windows phone as a gratuity! Seems fair no??

 

[mariusmuntean]

One of the best features of OneDrive was the ability to store music on it and then stream directly from it using my Windows phone or my Surface without having to have the actual files clogging up the memory on the devices. At the moment I'm using a Lumia 1020, but my contract is up in the next few days. I was looking at upgrading to the 950 when it comes out, but I'm now seriously thinking about being one of the sheep and changing to an Iphone or even downgrading to an Android phone (yes, I consider it a downgrade. I've had Android phones in the past and find them complicated and unstable).
At the moment I have 130gb of OneDrive storage - 15gb free, 15gb camera roll and 100gb enthusiast bonus. I'm only using 16gb of this.
If this reduction in size is purely down to a few people abusing the system, then wouldn't it be just as easy to reduce the size to 50gb or so? This must just be another way of making more money for an ailing company?
I've just checked out the cost of extra storage.
Itunes charge 0.79p per month for 50gb.
OneDrive is ?1.99 per month for 100gb.
Google Drive 15gb free. $1.99 per month for extra 100gb

This makes an Iphone very tempting unless Microsoft reduces the cost of additional storage next year.

From 2016 MS will charge 1.99$/EUR for 50GB and no more with the 100GB package.

 

[Ten Four]

Frankly, lately I've been wondering if the whole cloud thing is really worth it for the average person, other than as an auto-backup of photos and now with the pricing changes it makes even less sense. At work we have Office 365 and it stinks--laggy and buggy, and that's on a very high-end business network with big tubes to the Internet. At home, online versions of Word and Excel are worse--more laggy and buggy, and unreliable. I write a lot on the side and everything has to be backed up locally even if I work on it online because of the many, many times when the online version of something wasn't saved correctly or the online program doesn't work right. For someone like me this is just another reason to avoid "mobile first, cloud first" computing and storage. I already do any serious work on an old desktop running Ubuntu and other free software, and frankly it works much better than most of the "real" Office stuff I use during the day at work. The appeal of Office365 just isn't there, so the idea of paying for a subscription just to get the cloud storage is pretty minimal, especially when I can get a 1TB portable drive for around $60 and be able to access what I want, when I want reliably--which the cloud does not yet allow.

 

[mariusmuntean]

I can't believe they've done this. It's completely out of order. I'm not going to run off and join another cloud; It's going to cause such an inconvenience to download and delete files.

I understand it's a free service but they've tempted us to increase our GB by doing this and that and now they've taken it away.

you can use an online cloud file transfer service. most are free.and it moves your files from onedrive to another provider.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I think you should get 50GB free OneDrive storage for buying a windows phone as a gratuity! Seems fair no??

I don't know about fair. But as someone who will never use that much, I would prefer to NOT have the cost of 50GB being added to the price of a phone. I don't care if only added a dime (it would be much more). And for all you millions who will say it doesn't matter, please prove it by PayPaling me a dime. There is no such thing as free. MS has to pay for people and equipment to provide that space. It has to get paid for one way or another by money from our pockets.

It's would be okay to include SOME cloud storage in the price of a phone but it can't be perpetual and it would have to be variable based on the price of a phone. We may carrie a 1520 or 950 or ??? but there are people who struggle to pay for an inexpensive phone. They would be better served by not adding the cost of 50GB of cloud storage to the price of a low end phone. Not to mention that some people won't use cloud storage for security or privacy reasons or because they aren't around WiFi or can't afford the carrier data rates to up and download stuff to the cloud.

 

[Krystianpants]

For everyone complaining about losing their 15-30 free GBs, wah. It's $2 a month or get it for further for free for an entire year when checking out office 365. This is an industry norm and a service that you should have not been expecting to get for free your entire life considering the quality of the application.

True but a lot of people are moving over. And the biggest point is trust. And one of the advantages of buying a windows phone is you get this nice amount of storage space for free. So now people will be less likely to buy a Windows phone when the competition is offering better storage. As one poster said google just upped theirs to 100gigs. My guess is this is google's reaction to MS. You can't think like that in a world where competitors are giving away more for free. Say I invest $960CAD and buy the lumia 950XL. That's a lot of money and they are worried about 30 gigs of onedrive space? This is also money I can use for apps instead of for space. For some people $2 dollars for something they can get free is not worth it. They have other bills too. $2 dollars here, $10 dollars there, $90 dollars, etc. It all adds up. I know people that battle to have rent money every month and have to really use their budget well. Phone packages here already cost an arm and a leg. The economy here isn't doing too well, everything counts. I haven't even had my phone for a year. So I only got this space for a short period of time.

Anyways, it's about the mobile world which MS needs to have every advantage. This is a huge advantage for people. Lumia's will now have 4k video and amazing pictures and just ahead of their launch they do this. Apple can afford to only offer 5GB because they are ahead in market and people buy their stuff in droves. Google even though they are ahead still offer higher amounts than MS.

Like I said, I never used more than a few hundred megs but it's upsetting that they can make this change in a time when they should be offering more than anyone else to grab more marketshare. If they have a problem with multiple e-mail addresses they need to address this using technology not cutting people off that don't abuse it. If they require a credit card in your account to do it but won't charge, so be it. It's a good way to verify since you can make as many e-mail addresses as you wish but credit cards are generally not that easily available.

It doesn't instil confidence in me about the growth of their mobile share.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

For everyone complaining about losing their 15-30 free GBs, wah. It's $2 a month or get it for further for free for an entire year when checking out office 365. This is an industry norm and a service that you should have not been expecting to get for free your entire life considering the quality of the application.

Given I was already paying for the service (Office 365) I wasn't getting it free anyway (and I was also only using about 100GB at most, so don't even try and give me the "you were abusing the unlimited storage" palaver. I had my photos, some documents and 3 music albums on OneDrive). My issue is with the reasoning behind it they gave compared to the callousness of the cuts made. Google Drive offers more now, but I can't access it because I have a Windows Phone. Any other Windows Phone users that want Google Drive will just move to Android. And why shouldn't they? It has the apps including the Microsoft apps, it has some better first party apps than Microsoft. I'm sorry but what Microsoft did here was tantamount to corporate suicide. I'm only sticking with Windows Phone because I'm planning to use the universal app model to develop a proof of concept and I hate testing in emulators (give me a real device to test on any day of the week and thrice on Sundays)

 

[sheldon cohn]

They way I read the article if you have Office 365 the one drive gets cut back to 5GB. That is
the one reason I wouldn't buy the product. I to don't have that much on the One drive, pictures,
documents, and a few wave files. If my space gets cut and have to loose some of my stored
items, I most likely will be switching to Mac my next computer, after being with PCs for over 40
years.

 

[djeire84]

I don't know about fair. But as someone who will never use that much, I would prefer to NOT have the cost of 50GB being added to the price of a phone. I don't care if only added a dime (it would be much more). And for all you millions who will say it doesn't matter, please prove it by PayPaling me a dime. There is no such thing as free. MS has to pay for people and equipment to provide that space. It has to get paid for one way or another by money from our pockets.

It's would be okay to include SOME cloud storage in the price of a phone but it can't be perpetual and it would have to be variable based on the price of a phone. We may carrie a 1520 or 950 or ??? but there are people who struggle to pay for an inexpensive phone. They would be better served by not adding the cost of 50GB of cloud storage to the price of a low end phone. Not to mention that some people won't use cloud storage for security or privacy reasons or because they aren't around WiFi or can't afford the carrier data rates to up and download stuff to the cloud.

It should be free and no extra charge on the phone as a welcome gift to your new phone, and as you register the same email on any new device your only eligible for the free 50 on your initial windows phone purchase so if your getting 3 windows phone in your life cycle you don't keep totting up 50GB each time just on your first phone.
I don't have that much internal storage on my phone and as I have music stored on the cloud for xbox music I do exceed 50GB and that's pics and vids so in the grand scheme of things a media heavy user would run out! I have the 32GB class 10 sd for my apps only, as im preparing for windows Phone 10 in December. Plus my 640 XL produces high quality images and video so I even find with my paid 100GB storage I have to move my content to my Google drive which gives me tonnes of free space.

 

[jlzimmerman]

They way I read the article if you have Office 365 the one drive gets cut back to 5GB. That is
the one reason I wouldn't buy the product. I to don't have that much on the One drive, pictures,
documents, and a few wave files. If my space gets cut and have to loose some of my stored
items, I most likely will be switching to Mac my next computer, after being with PCs for over 40
years.

If you are a Office 365 subscriber, you get 1TB of storage. This has been the case for a while. As much as I'm angered over the free and camera roll changes, for $9.99 a month, The Office 365 option is still a better value than what the other companies are offering for 1Tb of storage.

The moment they try to charge any sort of subscription for Windows 10 after saying "it's free, forever" is the moment they'll simply shoot Windows in the head and give an immense boost to OS X, ChromeOS (which I am betting by then will be unified with Android, despite Google's current denial), Linux and Pirated versions of Windows.

Microsoft has said from the very beginning that Windows 10 was only going to be a free upgrade for the first 12 months.

 

[anon(6078578)]

Perhaps this should be called 'OneGate'? lol

 

[Penny_1]

Up until now, it was MS' marketing department that payed for the bandwidth, the online storage, and their geographically distributed replication and failover infrastructure that ensures our data remains safe and accessible.

The fact that we're now being asked to pitch in doesn't make OneDrive any less solid. OneDrive is still just as solid as it ever was. Since we can all afford $2 it's also just as accessible, and then possibly even more useful, as that gets us 3x the online storage.

The galling part is only in how the changes were communicated. Nobody believes the changes are being made because of a few abuses. This was (unsurprisingly) always the plan. They should just have been honest and stated that OneDrive's success and rapid growth can no longer be financed purely as a promotional effort, and that they hope those who use it extensively will be willing to pitch in their fair share.

I agree that MS should probably not have changed the quotas for those using the online camera roll, at least not for Lumia users. It seems that's an area where they need more promotional efforts, not less, but that's a different topic.

As a long time WP and Windows user, to me it is not about the money or even the communication. It is about their decisions. I would happily support the service financially for additional storage, and I agree they were eventually bound to monetize the service more effectively. I in fact do already support it as an Office 365 subscriber, both personally and at work.

I don't see the Lumia Camera Roll being a separate issue. It is the central problem with this decision in my opinion. If I ran out of my initial storage afforded by owning Windows products, OneDrive is the first place I would have gone to to expand the storage. It would be the most convenient solution for me as I'm already deeply using the service. THAT's where the 5GB lower limit is a decision that kills them. That's not enough for somebody to consider using it seriously. So instead of on-boarding users because it is the most convenient option, users will be driven to find better solutions from the get-go so they don't have to switch cloud storage solutions in between.

In the end, I believe this is a decision that at its very core prevents many users from using OneDrive as the default when they purchase a new Windows device. It HURTS the monetization of the service more than anything else.

 

[wmphoto]

I don't post on here very often at all... In fact, This may be my first post...
However, I find the proposed change that Microsoft is offering distasteful... Both on a trust level and on a legal level.
The caveat of free cloud storage when you did certain things was a selling point for their devices. Specifically their phones but later their tablets as well. By offering said storage in exchange for purchasing said devices, or rather as a bonus to purchasing said devices. They entered into a contract with the purchaser.
I could easily see a winning class action lawsuit in the making here.
Just food for thought.

 

[phelme]

Wonder how many people actually read the T & C's... Personally I like OneDrive it does work unfortunately there are some Muppets who will abuse anything that is free 75TB is a lot of hard disk space for a cloud server I've just spent $30k on 2 x 2TB special media servers (hardware and software) so someone has to pay as it ain't cheap

i've seen some interesting discussion on Ars on how the data center for OneDrive is not like your typical "slow retrieval" backup cloud service and costs a lot more to run due to making files available with a higher priority (i.e. through shared links etc.).

Even though the way they went about this is ridiculous, I can forgive MS for dropping the hammer at the high end, with a cap (just like the cellular carriers). But messing with the photo & phone storage limits and reducing them to 5Gb is a puzzler. I guess they figure if it's good enough for Cupertino...

 

[DMelan]

I don't recall MS ever saying that Windows was going to be 'free forever' find me that in writing from MS and I'll believe you.

OK, how about this:

"...a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch. This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost.”

I don't have enough posts here to include a link, but it comes from windows.com.

 

[SamNerd]

You will never understand, dude. Where I live in there is no easy way to fill Microsoft with money. .I had to pay equivalent of 30$ just to get a 20$ Gift card to buy some apps. Also, I don' t have a Credit card. I always relied on these 15GB free space on Onedrive with my 3 Windows devices. 15 GB is enough for me because I only store photos and some Docs. Now please tell me that I am the stupid one who bought 3 Devices for some free services, that I won' t be getting anymore...

 

[BinaryInk]

"...a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch. This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost.”

!= Free forever

 

[a5cent]

I don't recall MS ever saying that Windows was going to be 'free forever' find me that in writing from MS and I'll believe you.

OK, how about this:

"...a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch. This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device ? at no cost.?

The text explicitly states that the W10 license is limited to the lifetime of the device. That means you can't transfer the license to another device, and since you will eventually stop using that device, at the very latest when it breaks down, that makes W10 quite clearly NOT "free forever".

 

[Stephen Townsley]

I think you cant look at OneDrive in isolation.

Firstly consider the mantra. One drive to store all your important stuff.

Secondly think about the devices released in the last 2 years. Low end Lumias will little storage and tablets with 32gb. Even the Windows SSD ultrabooks have had just 128gb of storage. However this was alright because Microsoft would provide cloud storage for Windows users to add value to these devices. Think about the 'mobile first, cloud first' direction.

If you integrate your environment to default to the cloud and make people depend on it then this looks like a 'bait and switch' scam.