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New Changes Ruin Microsoft OneDrive, Some Say

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Some say that Microsoft may have just ruined its chances at being the best cloud storage service available anywhere. This morning the company unveiled changes to its Microsoft OneDrive service that raise prices, cuts free offerings and break promises the company made to users.

Microsoft quietly announced changes to OneDrive this morning in a post on the OneDrive Blog. OneDrive lets users hand off their pictures, music and documents to Microsoft’s servers. While stored on a server thousands of miles away, Microsoft makes the data available to users through OneDrive apps for just about everything that has an app store and a few platforms that don’t. OneDrive has both monthly and yearly plans. Last year, Microsoft promised users unlimited storage when they signed up for Office 365, another of its subscription services.

OneDrive Plans 2015

Read: What is OneDrive?

It’s breaking that promise of unlimited storage that seems to have hardcore users upset. Microsoft says that it won’t “offer unlimited storage to Office 365, Home, Personal or University subscribers.” It’s replacing that Unlimited Storage with just 1TB of OneDrive storage. That’s hardly a trivial amount, but a broken promise is a broken promise.

Microsoft is also rolling out some pretty harsh changes to its entire line-up of plans. OneDrive offers 100GB for $1.99 a month and 200GB for $2.99 a month. In January the company plans to replace those plans with a single $1.99 option for 50GB of storage.

The other moves that Microsoft announced this morning certainly aren’t helping it with die-hard fans of the service. In addition to raising prices, Microsoft is slashing the amount of free storage it gives to users with a Microsoft Account. Previously, Microsoft gave everyone 15GB of free storage to use with their Windows PCs, smartphones, Android devices and more. Additionally, the company provided more bonuses to users for referring their friends and adding camera back up to their smartphone.

Going forward, users will only get 5GB of OneDrive storage free. What’s more, Microsoft is eliminating the storage bonus that users get for adding automatic camera backups to OneDrive from their iOS and Android devices.

Anyone on OneDrive using more than 1TB of storage will have “at least” a year to remove their files from OneDrive. Microsoft is offering subscription refunds to anyone and everyone that purchased an Office 365 subscription thinking they would have unlimited storage and not 1TB. Free OneDrive users who are over the new 5GB limit are entitled to a free year of Office 365 Personal, which comes with 1TB of storage. Microsoft says it won’t force any users of its 100GB and 200GB plans to change their usage habits.

Microsoft OneDrive users can read more about the storage changes in a new FAQ area setup to manage the storage plan transitions.

Read: Microsoft OneDrive Review

Gotta Be Mobile took a look at OneDrive storage earlier this year. At the time, the service was the most complete, well-rounded cloud storage utility for Windows besides Drop Box. Recent changes now call that into question. Windows 10, Microsoft’s operating system for notebooks, desktops and tablets, no longer lets users sync OneDrive folders to external storage like MicroSD cards. The company also ditched the placeholder files that allowed users to organize content stored on OneDrive without having to sync every single file to their local drive.

Anyone using OneDrive should head to the service’s website now to review how much storage they’re using. Based on the amount of storage their consumer and their needs, it might be worth investigating other services like Google Drive or Apple’s iCloud.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. munchy 22

    11/06/2015 at 1:16 am

    I don’t think these any option left unless microsoft beg their way to a incredible apology and a guaranteed lifetime about of minuman storeage around the 50g. But people after this should invest in a different cloud system, personally I think they should invest in a non windows envoirnment cause after the last 2 years its obvious microsoft will just screw you all again if they gain ground and up until 2 days ago I was hoping they would. Lets take a seriouis lok at what they have done.
    First they left windows phone 7 users out to dry by bringing out windows 8 mobile.
    then they tried to force all xbax gamers into a always online or your xboxone is unusable, even just to play your owned dvds lol.
    Then now they decide to blame onedrive unlimited problem on users that use it unlimited like microsoft offered lol, what a joke.
    But heres the biggest issue. Microsoft is goning to steel your space all you windows users are gona lose onedrive space cause in my opinion microsoft are stealing it from you. That’s right that 15 or like most 30gig is about to become 5gig. Just ask your self this. Microsft thinks 5 gig is more than enough for free storage they think its more than enough for all your computing needs. Is 5 gig good for you cause I don’t know anyone that would say yes. The fact microsoft feels 5gig is a lot of space shows me that microsoft belong on another planet and not this one. But that doesn’t change the fact that microsoft just screwed over every windows user and most are very loyal windows users. In 4 years they have tried to screw people over and over again I think this time theres no one else to disappoint, I think microsoft just disappointed their final user base that is left. I really believe that.
    It will be interesting to see if people really are gona put up with it. this is gona be a topic of conversation on the net for then next well life cycle of windows 10. Great timing on microsoft part as they think they might sell some 950 and 950xl but I guess if there are isheep out there maybe that’s something microsoft are trying to do, with microbots or something. I’m very disappointed as I thing windows 10 desktop is great and I feel mobile windows phones are then best, shame the company that makes them sucks and doesn’t care.

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