The tech giant Microsoft altered storage plans for it’s OneDrive users. Even though this is not the first time for OneDrive that the storage plans have been changed, but this time the whole thing became a little mess and caused confusion to so many people.
Long Story short,
The starting point of all this confusion is when Microsoft offered unlimited cloud OnDrive storage for Office365 subscribers last year. But the company could see its users taking advantage of this facility and started storing HD videos, movies, games, backups, etc. So, the company wanted to change OneDrie storage plans by limiting the space to the users. Last month, Microsoft had announced changes on OneDrive storage plans and removed unlimited storage option to Office365 subscribers, saying
“Since we started to roll out unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 consumer subscribers, a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings. In some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average. Instead of focusing on extreme backup scenarios, we want to remain focused on delivering high-value productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the majority of OneDrive users.”
According to this change,
- No unlimited storage options for Office 365 Home, Personal or University subscribers from now on. The storage limit would get reduced to 1TB.
- The company also removed 100GB and 200GB paid plans and replaced them with limited a 50GB plan for $1.99 pmo in early 2016.
- For Free OneDrive storage users, the storage would decrease from 15GB to 5GB for existing and new users. The 15GB camera bonus was also got discontinued. These changes would take effect starting early 2016.
At that time, the company also posted workarounds for users who already using storage greater than changed amount. According to which,
- If you are a office 365 user using storage more than 1TB, you would get notified regarding this change that you have to move your files, with 12 months of notice time.
- If you are an OneDrive user using more than 5GB, you would also get notified regarding the change in early 2016 when update gets rolled out, and you can keep your files at least for 12 months.
- These changes won’t effect if you are using upgraded OneDrive 100GB or 200GB storage plans.
The company even offered a pro-rated refund for Office 365 subscribers, in case they are unhappy with this storage change.
As you can expect, these changes disappointed many Microsoft Customers. Even though reducing unlimited storage for Office 365 subscribers to 1TB won’t effect many people, reduction in OneDrive storage got protested by many. A petition asking Micorsoft to give their storage back received more than 72k votes forcing the company to resolve the issue. So, Microsoft took it’s decision back.
Douglas Pearce, Group Program manager from Microsoft, responded apologizing the user community and said that
”
Office 365 Home, Personal, and University subscriptions will continue to include 1 TB of storage. Any subscriber who received additional storage as part of our unlimited offer will keep it for at least 12 months. For anyone unhappy with the decision to not offer unlimited storage, we will offer a full refund.
Office 365 Home, Personal, and University subscriptions will continue to include 1 TB of storage. Any subscriber who received additional storage as part of our unlimited offer will keep it for at least 12 months. For anyone unhappy with the decision to not offer unlimited storage, we will offer a full refund.
For customers of our free service who have over 5 GB of content and who are directly impacted by the storage change, we will offer one free year of Office 365 Personal, which includes 1 TB of storage. These customers will receive an email with redemption information early next year.
In addition, for our biggest fans who have been loyal advocates for OneDrive, we are adding a new offer that lets you keep your existing 15 GB of free storage when the changes happen next year. If you also have the 15 GB camera roll bonus, you’ll be able to keep that as well. From now until the end of January, you can sign up to keep your storage at the link below.
http://aka.ms/onedrivestorage
“
Now this is what You should do –
So, no change regarding limiting storage of Office 365 subscribers, but if you are an OnDrive Storage user and don’t want to reduce your storage from 15Gigs to 5gigs, you have to go to this link and select “keep you free storage”. This option is available for new and existing users until end of January 2016. For those who sign up after Jan ’16, would only get 5GB of OneDrive Storage.
What About Loyalty Bonus ?
Back in 2014, while increasing OneDrive storage limit from 7GB to 15 GB, the company included 10GB as “Loyalty Bonus”. If you are still using your “Loyalty Bonus”, and not sure whether you would still get that or not, no need to worry. Famous Microsoft New site WinBeta found answer to this on Twitter
