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.

10 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 Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      Let's add to that.

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

      But presenting misleading alerts to trick people into installing Windows10, that's perfectly acceptable.

      What I don't understand is:

      a) Why windows 10 users haven't filed a class-action suit against Microsoft, and
      b) Why the FTC hasn't dropped a hammer on Microsoft over this.

      The FTC seems to be the only federal agency that actually tries to benefit the people. They should be pounding Microsoft into the ground over the misleading alerts and unwanted upgrades.

    2. Re:Abuse? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Informative

      Microsoft already set a pretty low bar with Windows ME and Vista.

      ME was unforgiveable. But Vista worked quite well with extra hardware like a quad-core processor and 4GB or more of RAM. Since I originally built my system for Vista, I had no problems running Windows 10.

      Tell me how well Vista worked with all of the peripherals it made instantly obsolete. I remember a group that over my loud objections, forced me to upgrade them to Vista. Then my favorite moment was announcing to them that they just bought themselves a slew of new printers and scanners.

      Vista eventually worked okay after the wide path of distruction it caused and nonfunctional machines it left from Vista Basic certified were buried.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. 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.

    4. 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.

  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. Uninstalled the app and haven't looked back by ryanmc1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I found about a month ago that the battery on my phone was draining really fast. Where I could usually go a day and half, it was down to just half a day. After digging around and looking at battery stats I found the culprit, onedrive, it was preventing my phone from sleeping. So I denied it the keep awake permission, but that didn't seem to help. Finally I completely uninstalled it. Honestly I have not missed it. Except for the fact that it is built into Windows I have no desire to ever use it again.

  4. 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!

  5. Re:What comes to mind? by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 5, Funny

    No limits, unless it's like inflammable, that shit means flammable.

  6. 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.