Here's a piece of news that should revolt those of you who have been wooed by Microsoft OneDrive's generous storage options: the service is updating its plans to slash those storage options left and right. Insert whooshing sword sound effect. 

Writing on the OneDrive blog, the team explains that some Office 365 consumers reaaaaalllllyyyy took advantage of their unlimited storage feature and uploaded about 75TB of data by backing up multiple computers and saving entire movie and DVR libraries. That's why you can't have nice things anymore. Some users abused the system and now the service is cutting down everyone's plans in order to focus more on the core of its experience: collaboration. That or Microsoft is trying to lower its server expenses and using this as an excuse to do so. Either way, here are the three main changes coming to OneDrive plans:

  • Starting now, Office 365 Home, Personal, or University subscribers only get 1TB of OneDrive storage instead of unlimited. If you're a subscriber with more than 1TB stored, you'll be notified and given 12 months to reduce your files back to 1TB. If you find that the change doesn't suit you, you can ask for a refund.
  • In early 2016, 100GB and 200GB plans will no longer be available to new users and will be replaced with a 50GB plan at $1.99 monthly. If you've subscribed to one of these plans already, you'll still be able to keep them.
  • In early 2016, free OneDrive storage will decrease from 15GB to 5GB for all users and the 15GB camera roll storage bonus will be discontinued. If you're a current user with more than 5GB stored, you'll be able to keep your files for 12 months after the changes take effect. Plus you can redeem a free one-year Office 365 Personal subscription with 1TB of OneDrive storage.

So Microsoft is using the extreme example of people abusing unlimited storage with 75TB worth of files as an excuse to reduce free 15GB plans to 5GB. That's a drastic over-compensation. I find it weird that at a time when many other companies are increasing their storage options, OneDrive is going the opposite way.

Source: OneDrive