Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft To Begin Reducing Your Free OneDrive Cloud Storage Starting Today (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the free-stuff,-no-more dept.

For those of you who forgot -- or didn't bother -- to keep the 15GB worth of OneDrive storage, starting today you will see a big change in your account. On Thursday, Microsoft will begin shrinking your 15GB OneDrive free storage to 5GB, and also cancel the 15GB storage it gave you as part of camera roll backup bonus. For its part, Microsoft did warn about the changes to people a couple of times over the past few months. It all started when Microsoft gave Office 365 subscribers unlimited OneDrive storage space. Many people abused this, uploading over 75TB worth of movies and other files in some cases. BetaNews reports: If you log into your OneDrive account and find that you still have the full storage quota available, don't be lulled into a false sense of security. The cuts are actually being spread out between July 13 and July 27. Unless you opted out of the change, you're out of luck.

9 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Abuse? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you offer unlimited storage and someone uploads 75TB worth of data, they are not abusing the service but taking advantage of your generous offer. If you don't want 75TB of data, set a lower limit.

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    1. Re:Abuse? by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, you have been fooled by the marketing people. They say "unlimited" because they know it sounds good. If they don't mean "unlimited" then say "5 TB max" or "20GB max". But that doesn't sound as good on an advertisement. Don't apologize for the marketers. They know what they were doing.

    2. Re:Abuse? by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're scumbag liars, and it should be illegal to advertise like that even with a disclaimer that is hard to read or flashed too short to read on screen.

    3. Re:Abuse? by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No it is abuse.
      It is like going to an all you can eat restaurant stay there for the whole day and eat all your meals there.
      Or just swiping all the pennies in the give a penny take a penny bin....

      In general when you have a free service. You should be grateful that it is free, and use it respecting all the other users. Storage is about $0.25 a gig (Assuming redundant drives) So that 75TB is about $18,000 worth of space for your free service. So for a company who has to share for a lot of people. They expect to spend a few bucks per user. However abuse is pushing past that amount.

      There really isn't a justification for being a dick

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. So it begins... by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...the race to the cloud is a race to extract rent payments for users. Make no mistake: that is what it is about. The strategy is to give it away for free at first to get all of us to eventually pay a monthly fee for these services so the CFO can accurately forecast their quarterly revenue. In addition, once everything is moved to the cloud, you won't need a PC anymore. You can use a "cloud" enabled. Eventually this will be a requirement, and you will only be allowed on the Internet if you use an approved "cloud" device. If you don't, you might be a terrorist, or a pirate, or a pirate terrorist.

  3. Re:Worked out for me... by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What a bargain! Only $69.95 per year for 1TB? That is only 40% more than a 1TB hard drive costs. And you get to pay for it every year you say? What a great value!

  4. Hard drives are CHEAP, so are USB flash drives by kheldan · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Why are so many of you bothering with 'the cloud' when this sort of crap happens over and over and over again, ad nauseam? Are too many of you incapable of learning?

    Surely they won't hurt us again this time, let's try Cloud storage again!

    *Bangs head against wall repeatedly*

    People, you just don't get it. 'The Cloud' is a meme; it's a ruse; IT'S A TRAP. It's only two steps away from being Ransomware: 'Pay up or your data is TOAST'.

    External hard drives are cheap and reliable. So are huge USB flash drives, both in nice fast USB3. Buy two for your most sensitive data and make two copies, just in case. Really, honestly, seriously, how difficult is this?

    It's too big, too bulky, too confusing, why should I pay for anything?

    Get a microSD card and a tiny USB adapter. Fits nicely in your wallet or purse. USB HDD's are smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Even huge, normal USB flash drives are tiny now, and they're all cheap, cheap, cheap. Meanwhile 'cloud' providers keep playing shell games with your data, losing it, getting hacked, going out of business and telling you 'tough luck', and likely snooping into your data regardless of anything they tell you to the contrary. Come on, people, why do you keep punishing yourselves this way? Did you do something bad in a previous life or something?

    Please, please,, people: Stop with the 'cloud' nonsense already. You're just hurting yourselves.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  5. My answer by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Offer unlimited storage, and when people upload 75TB worth of data it's abuse.

    How many TB isn't abuse again?

    Okay, here's my answer.

    It's Microsoft's blame-throwing that annoys me.

    If they came out and said "we can't support unlimited as planned, we have to switch to fixed limits", then everyone would understand. A well-meaning policy turned out to be unworkable, no biggie.

    Instead, they say "we do this because of user abuse", then they're putting the blame on the users, and shows contempt.

  6. Re:Abused? by macs4all · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unlimited cloud storage now means you can store stuff until they decide that they are done letting you store any more of your stuff.

    So, you think that "Unlimited" means "Unlimited until we say you've reached our limit of Unlimited", right?

    So, "Unlimited" for certain values of "Unlimited"?

    I certainly agree that storing 75 TB of data in their "Unlimited" storage is supremely asshat-ish; but that doesn't mean that they violated (or even "abused") the limits of "Unlimited".

    Microsoft said one thing, and have been lying to so many people for so long, that they apparently never bothered to figure out that some people would actually take them at their "word".

    Pretty stupid for a corporation with enough lawyers on staff to form a small Army, and which feels fit to require EULAs for the most trivial of software packages that have more words in them than the AT&T Divestiture Decree.