Most tech companies offering cloud storage services have been expanding their offers. This, however, does not apply to Microsoft. The Redmond-based software giant has recently announced that it will be killing off the unlimited storage offer in its cloud service, OneDrive. The company is instead offering downsized options, which users can opt to pay for.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft will still be offering free storage options to OneDrive users. The size will be cut down from 15 GB to one third of it, at 5 GB. Paid storage, which amounts to $1.99 per month, will offer 50 GB as the company eliminates the 100 GB and 200 GB plans. Those who use the unlimited storage option will now have to do with 1 TB.
On its Monday blog post, Microsoft cited that the unlimited storage offer has been exploited by some users and said that a small number of them have stored entire movie collections exceeding 75 TB. "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," Microsoft stated.
The company pointed out that the usage exceeding 75 TB storage is 14,000 times more than that of the average. The downsizing will take effect early in the following year. Users who have exceeded the new limits will be given a 12-month grace period to be able to comply with the new thresholds. Office 365 users, on the other hand, may be eligible for refunds.
"OneDrive has always been designed to be more than basic file storage and backup. These changes are needed to ensure that we can continue to deliver a collaborative, connected and intelligent service," as explained in the post. The changes have been met with angry responses from OneDrive users, who say that they will be switching to other cloud services such as Dropbox and Google Drive.
