Onedrive storage down to 5GB from 15 + 15GB

[crazygonzo]

This leaves Copy and Box, how long until they screw those up ?

 

[HeyCori]

This leaves Copy and Box, how long until they screw those up ?

Supposedly Box is still working on a new Universal app.

https://www.box.com/blog/introducing-box-for-windows-10/

 

[Ron Vin]

Box Personal 10GB free
Yahoo Flickr 1TB free for photos and videos no 4K
Google 15 GB free or $1.99/100GB
MS 5GB free or $1.99/100Gb same in UK ?1.99/100GB of course more expensive
Apple iCloud 5GB free (MS copying Apple of course good or bad no matter JUST COPY IT!)
Mega.nz 50 GB free with windows app for WM phone or 5? for 200GB not bad!
Check the link for more options
13 best cloud storage services 2015/2016: Dropbox vs Google Drive - Test Centre - PC Advisor
Anyway like many others my Lumia 930 is my last windows phone. MS is apparently doing everything they can to put off their private non-business loyal customers. So be it MS! If that's what you want we'll go. Onedrive is really good much better than google for me. Google drive is a mess. But Mega is fantastic. So is Flickr for photos and videos. Check it out.

 

[phelme]

I'd advise people to listen to today's What the Tech? and listen to Paul Thurrott give some insight into why this happened.

(I still think the $99 Office365 w/5 x 1TB of OneDrive is a good deal)

 

[BobLobIaw]

Thanks for the share, phelme. That's pretty good insight--although it's interesting that he spoke mostly of the reduction from unlimited to 1TB for PAYING Office 365 users.

If 99.99% of people use less than 5GB, then then calculations and decision for free storage limits are right, but the handling of the situation is the big problem. It sounds like the press got wind of this and was going to spill the beans so MS had to make a half-baked, late-night disclosure with a lame excuse. Paul also thought there might be some technical solutions to solve this instead of just lowering the allocations.

It doesn't really change my opinion. I'm not jumping for joy over the change, but it was always expected in my mind. I never thought I'd get 40GB forever. I also think anyone that wants more than 5GB cloud storage should be willing to pony up a buck or two a month. With that in mind, most here disagree but I think the sense of entitlement is a bit disturbing. Like Thurrott said, MS isn't a dead storage company and that's where OneDrive was headed. We all pay for OneDrive as consumers (in one form or another) and I'm not real interested in subsidizing data hoarders so these changes are fine with me.

 

[fgaudet]

That Paul Thurrot vlog hardly ever mentioned the drop from 15 to 5 GB for the free users, which imho is the real issue. And the logic is flawed: if 99.9% of users use less than 5 GB, then there's no point in forcibly *capping* everyone at 5 GB. The unlimited plan was a stupid marketing ploy that couldn't be maintained for obvious reasons. Dropping everyone not on a plan to 5 GB to force them on a plan just reeks of greed. Does anyone actually believe that offering 15 GB, or even 30, instead of 5 will break the MS bank?

 

[BobLobIaw]

That Paul Thurrot vlog hardly ever mentioned the drop from 15 to 5 GB for the free users, which imho is the real issue. And the logic is flawed: if 99.9% of users use less than 5 GB, then there's no point in forcibly *capping* everyone at 5 GB. The unlimited plan was a stupid marketing ploy that couldn't be maintained for obvious reasons. Dropping everyone not on a plan to 5 GB to force them on a plan just reeks of greed. Does anyone actually believe that offering 15 GB, or even 30, instead of 5 will break the MS bank?

The problem is that if you offer 30GB for everyone, then you have to plan for that, which means substantially higher costs as Thurrott mentioned accompany a cloud series of servers. If only extreme outliers are using more than 5GB then the number is right. It's just a big P.R. hit to MS because those who consider free cloud storage to be a sacred and cherished amenity are obviously very vocal.

 

[jeffoffline]

I laughed a little when Paul said "why would you want to support Google, they don't even make their apps available for Windows Phone" and I thought to myself... well Microsoft barely does either... ha

I think the biggest impact on this will be felt through Windows Phone sales and as someone testing the waters with a Lumia 830 it certainly gives me pause. I'm already pretty disappointed with Microsoft's own support for their OS. Now as they're about to release new phones with 20 mp cameras and 4k recording they slash their camera backup to 5 gb... I really like the Windows OS itself but for me personally that's just another nudge back to Android.

 

[lumiaaaa]

I have 40GB free(25GB grandfathered from skydrive + 15GB Camera roll), is that going to be reduced to 5GB as well?

 

[Kavu2]

Thanks phelme for link/share of the Paul Thurrot vlog..

One comment by Paul Thurrot caught my attention....
@23:15 Paul mentions regarding what might have been the initial reason/goal of the MS implementation of higher storage offerings in the first place.....
(paraphrased here) ~ 'Perhaps what Microsoft was thinking was that they wanted to remove a perceived barrier to users 'buying' into the MS ecosystem. That perhaps users were hesitating this leap because of a perception that cloud storage was not big enough to comfortably make this 'any device anywhere' marketing pitch work'

This 'cloud anxiety' compares to the 'range anxiety' issue that the electric auto industry faces. Each very real barriers for the consumer. So MS effectively diagnosed the issue but now has completely undercut and counter promoted through their implementation.

The MS marketing strategy of 'any device anywhere' pivots around the concept that your devices will sync your data to the cloud and allow access from anywhere. This is NOT archival storage usage. Granted apparently some users were doing said archival storage (including Paul T)....some in very large quantities....enough that the OneDrive financial model became untenable. And thus the knee jerk and knee cutting reaction by MS. This appears to be a marketing dept implementation and bean-counter downsizing. And apparently the Public Relations dept was nowhere to be seen at this 5 minute lunch-break, without-thought decision.

And for the record any cursory examination of the psychological effects of 'cloud anxiety' would reveal that there is a need for a 'buffer' in storage limits to provide the needed comfort factor to make the leap to the MS marketing sell. So for the 99%(according to Paul's source) of sub-5GB users to be comfortable enough to buy into the 'any device anywhere' marketing sell, there needs to be a buffer beyond that 5GB....physically and visibly beyond....generously beyond...multiples beyond.

Personally I bought into the MS ecosystem with a tablet/PC/phone BECAUSE of this 'feature' offered by MS. One of the MAIN reasons I chose a MS phone was because of the ability to sync my devices(and their apps/services/settings/info) between all my devices...seamlessly. It was a no-brainer and has been great. And although I know that you can kinda/sorta do most(but not all) of this through other cloud storage services, it's not as smooth, convenient or seamless.

Microsoft has lessened the vision of the 'any device anywhere' marketing valuation with this business decision. There are other ways to more effectively rein in operating costs and still retain the initial marketing goal. Cutting 99% of your customers off at the knees to solve a problem created by the 1% is the reactionary thought process of children. Are children now running MS?

 

[phelme]

Dropping everyone not on a plan to 5 GB to force them on a plan just reeks of greed. Does anyone actually believe that offering 15 GB, or even 30, instead of 5 will break the MS bank?

The user of the term "greed" this week in relation to these events always throws me. They are giving you a service, which they really can't sustain in the way they promised and is not core to their business, for free. Heck, Apple, the wealthiest company on the planet makes their iCloud users pay if you want more than 5 GB. That 5 GB figure MS settled on didn't come out of nowhere.

This is where I believe Google's ad driven revenue stream, and in turn giving a number of services away for free, has in a way poisoned people's brains. :winktongue:

I am curious to see how they handle OneDrive when the 950's are released though and what storage they'll have for those.

(I have 140 GB with OneDrive currently, mostly through Lumia's and Bing Rewards, no idea how much I'll end up with in the end either)

 

[a5cent]

Does anyone actually believe that offering 15 GB, or even 30, instead of 5 will break the MS bank?

I'd definitely believe that.

Without numbers it's impossible to estimate however. If you don't know how many people use OneDrive and what their average storage requirements are, then there is no way to make any claim about whether the service is cost prohibitive or not. Either way, online storage isn't a cheap service to offer.

For every GB someone uses, MS requires 3GB to store it safely, so giving us 15GB actually costs MS 45GB. Hosting that data requires that MS setup multiple, geographically separated facilities that must be maintained and staffed. Adding hundreds if not (more likely) thousands of HDD drives to the storage network every day certainly isn't cheap either. Just thinking of the electricity bills makes me weary, not to mention bandwidth costs.

Paul Thurott explicitly stated that MS' current setup just wasn't economically feasible, which is another big hint that changing from 15GB or 30GB (actually 45GB or 90GB) to 5GB (actually 15GB) very well could be a notable difference. With potentially millions of users, any reduction to storage quotas will result in huge cost savings. If you're spending 900 million on storage annually, then reducing storage requirements by over two thirds, and the associated costs along with it, is huge!

Either way, the service is definitely worth $2. It's pretty darn cheap considering what you get for it. MS just screwed themselves by conditioning people to think the service is worth nothing and should be free.

 

[StaticXCC]

I'd definitely believe that.

Without numbers it's impossible to estimate however. If you don't know how many people use OneDrive and what their average storage requirements are, then there is no way to make any claim about whether the service is cost prohibitive or not. Either way, online storage isn't a cheap service to offer.

For every GB someone uses, MS requires 3GB to store it safely, so giving us 15GB actually costs MS 45GB. Hosting that data requires that MS setup multiple, geographically separated facilities that must be maintained and staffed. Adding hundreds if not (more likely) thousands of HDD drives to the storage network every day certainly isn't cheap either. Just thinking of the electricity bills makes me weary, not to mention bandwidth costs.

I am unsure why you speculate on the costs of cloud storage when you just criticized somebody else for doing so.

The only thing we know for sure is this, the cost of storage itself gets cheaper and cheaper every year. I can buy personally a 1TB Seagate drive that will perform far faster than cloud storage for $50 now. 6TB, $200 one time cost. MS wants $84 a year for 1 TB, which is more expensive than just buying a drive. Factor in multiple years and the external hard drive storage is the better option. Don't think Microsoft doesn't get a bulk discount for purchasing massive raid arrays for cloud service?

As the price for storage goes down, Microsoft making the service more costly per dollar is a brain dead move. Blaming the people that used a huge amount on your advertised "Unlimited" plan is even more brain dead, because it tells me Microsoft is willing to punish ME, a LIGHT user for the "crime" of using the service as advertised. What's next, higher prices for Office 365? Addition of a service fee for Windows itself? Hell if I know, but Microsoft has publicly now stated watch out, "don't depend on our services because we WILL bait and switch you for more money, even as our costs go down to implement said services". In a time when the middle class is dieing, people are struggling more and more with stagnant/shrinking wages and cost of living increases... every penny counts, and Microsoft is pricing itself out of the competition while blaming the few.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Microsoft finally makes WP/M professional. Times of nokization are gone and WM wont be for sharing pictures by stupid hipsters and it will have microSD to store data. I hope next generation of WM phones won't have useless and heavy features like oversized camera or wireless charging.

Why do you think they are useless?

 

[wplee]

Paul Thurott explicitly stated that MS' current setup just wasn't economically feasible, which is another big hint that changing from 15GB or 30GB (actually 45GB or 90GB) to 5GB (actually 15GB) very well could be a notable difference. With potentially millions of users, any reduction to storage quotas will result in huge cost savings. If you're spending 900 million on storage annually, then reducing storage requirements by over two thirds, and the associated costs along with it, is huge!

MS just screwed themselves by conditioning people to think the service is worth nothing and should be free.

Lol. Bro, you really need to learn what Bait & Switch means.

Microsoft already calculated every single 2015 OneDrive cost back in 2013. They had NOT created a brand new service with no idea how to price it. Personal Cloud Storage already a value/price per GB. Look at Dropbox, Google Drive and Box.

They didn't "accidently" give away 15GB/30GB. They knew their offer had to be competitive to get App Downloads, Sell Surfaces and Lumias etc. They either knew they could afford this OR knew they couldn't afford it but could dupe people into becoming dependant on it before their storage 30GB (100%) down to 5GB (16%)!!!! Imagine a share you owned dropping from $1 down to 16 cents overnight!

Non of this was an accident. The rubbish about "some" people abusing OneDrive is a completely separate issue about a few breaking terms and conditions and simply cause confusion. The plan was always to get people dependant on OneDrive then charge. Bait and Switch.

I love Microsoft, but this move was pure misleading. They never made it clear that the space was temporary. Many feel fooled, only naive people still think this was unplanned.

 

[mariusmuntean]

Can you give a description of this? I have unlimited storage on my google student account and I feel like copying my content from onedrive to google drive

you can use multicloud

 

[Great deal]

As anoyying as it has been and after looking at the reality (which is what the financial people at MS did) it just doesnt make any sense. I agree with Paul Thurott's views that its unsustainable and also with his bafflement at the reduction of the 15gb to 5gb. The storage is not just one HDD, they have to buy multiple HDD in different geographical locations costing a silly amount of money while people are shoving all they have and just keeping it thier as a backup. MS is a service, software, device company, not a storage business. I can see them losing massive amount of money if they carried on. I am however disapointed in the manner in which this was done.

I am unsure why you speculate on the costs of cloud storage when you just criticized somebody else for doing so.

The only thing we know for sure is this, the cost of storage itself gets cheaper and cheaper every year. I can buy personally a 1TB Seagate drive that will perform far faster than cloud storage for $50 now. 6TB, $200 one time cost. MS wants $84 a year for 1 TB, which is more expensive than just buying a drive. Factor in multiple years and the external hard drive storage is the better option. Don't think Microsoft doesn't get a bulk discount for purchasing massive raid arrays for cloud service?

As the price for storage goes down, Microsoft making the service more costly per dollar is a brain dead move. Blaming the people that used a huge amount on your advertised "Unlimited" plan is even more brain dead, because it tells me Microsoft is willing to punish ME, a LIGHT user for the "crime" of using the service as advertised. What's next, higher prices for Office 365? Addition of a service fee for Windows itself? Hell if I know, but Microsoft has publicly now stated watch out, "don't depend on our services because we WILL bait and switch you for more money, even as our costs go down to implement said services". In a time when the middle class is dieing, people are struggling more and more with stagnant/shrinking wages and cost of living increases... every penny counts, and Microsoft is pricing itself out of the competition while blaming the few.

 

[a5cent]

I am unsure why you speculate on the costs of cloud storage when you just criticized somebody else for doing some.

Did you see me mention a number or say how expensive it may be? No. You didn't. I stated explicitly that we just can't know the costs the OneDrive service incurs, nor at what point the service becomes too expensive for MS to continue in its present form. Saying we can't know isn't speculating.

What I wanted to point out is how OneDrive is utterly incomparable to the trivial act of hooking up an external HDD to your computer at home, and how ignorant it is to assume that because you can buy a low quality TB drive for $50, that the costs incurred to MS must necessarily also be "low".

Any service that requires investments on a per user basis will quickly become very expensive when the service is provided to millions of people. That is simply a fact. It's why engineers are sometimes required to spend months optimizing away the costs of a few cents for a consumer product.... when sold by the millions, those cents add up. OneDrive is no different.

Obviously I've so far failed in explaining that to you, but I hope this post corrects that.

And again, the whole point is to show that while we can't know the costs OneDrive incurs, or what MS' budget is, the idea that OneDrive could have become cost prohibitive for MS to run in its current form is not entirely unbelievable.

 

[a5cent]

Lol. Bro, you really need to learn what Bait & Switch means.

Or maybe you need to learn that a single post may not represent all of a persons views? Either way, you definitely need to learn some manners.

I'm not disagreeing with any of your points. The facts remain however, that running an online storage service for millions of people is expensive, and that nothing I stated implies that MS was unable to accurately project the service's running costs.

Any service MS provides is based on a cost/benefit analysis. That means a service can become cost prohibitive simply by the service not providing the expected benefits, even if the cost projections were 100% accurate. I suspect that is part of what happened.

That doesn't preclude some degree of bait & switch also being involved. Based on what I've heard so far, I just don't believe you are correct in assuming that b&s'ing was the only factor contributing to these policy changes.

All of these views can be held simultaneously, without them being contradictory.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

The only thing we know for sure is this, the cost of storage itself gets cheaper and cheaper every year.

No, we also know for sure that millions of people COULD upload things faster than a cloud service can add storage no matter how cheap it is to buy. It is a bad business model to pay for x times as much storage as customers use no mater how cheap it is. And Microsoft doesn't. Which means they either risk capacity problems or pay more than they need to for the storage. The closer the commitments are to actual usage, the better for all parties. The hard part is getting customers to move toward a model closer to like buying gas for your car and farther from like playing Powerball. Microsoft has demonstrated the worst possible way to take a step in that direction.