These days, cloud storage feels more limited than ever.It's expensive, fragmented, and locked behind various tiers.Meanwhile, our storage needs continue growing, as the 3-2-1 rule relies on external storage, and for many of us, that just means cloud backups.
Take Google storage, for instance.The free 15GB limit has been around for years, and it now has to cover Gmail, Drive, and Photos.Many of us are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and to think that we used to have it so good with unlimited storage...
Unlimited storage was a (misguided) bet The math just wasn't math-ing Unlimited storage sounds like something straight out of a storybook.In a way, it's true: cloud providers never quite promised infinite space, at least not in the literal sense.They just made a bet based on averages, and in the process, they underestimated what some people are capable of.
Those companies expected people to store documents, phone photos, email attachments, and maybe some backups.Those users would leave a huge amount of their quota untouched.That felt like a safe bet in the mid-2010s, when Microsoft could announce unlimited OneDrive storage for Office 365 subscribers and tell people that storage limits were gone for good.
On paper, it made the subscription look irresistible.And most people actually never came even close to abusing Microsoft's "generosity." It's true: most people just need some extra space for their photos and such.Most people, but not all people.
The problem is that storage is more than just an arbitrary number in an app.Every terabyte uploaded to the cloud has to live on real drives in real data centers, usually with redundancy so one failed disk doesn't wipe out someone's files.It has to be synced, backed up, moved around, cooled, powered, secured, and served back to users at their every beck and call.
That entire chain costs a whole lot of money, and while it's negligible when every user barely uses their quota, it becomes staggering when people start abusing the idea of "unlimited storage." SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD A cloud backup subscription is, well, a subscription.Instead of paying monthly, you can get yourself an external drive to store your files.$175 at Amazon Expand Collapse Microsoft quickly figured out what 'unlimited' really meant PC backups, movie libraries, and 75TB accounts That became painfully clear in 2015, when Microsoft walked back its unlimited OneDrive storage for Office 365 subscribers.
The company said a small number of users had started backing up multiple PCs, entire movie collections, and DVR recordings to the cloud, which is pretty much what you'd expect people to do when you tell them they have unlimited storage.Some accounts reportedly exceeded 75TB of storage, which Microsoft said was 14,000 times the average.Oof.
That number is borderline comical, although it's got nothing on what an HDD-based NAS can store.But this 75TB figure also explains why unlimited storage had to nope out and end so quickly.A 75TB cloud account isn't someone overdoing it with their holiday photos; it's more like a home server, a huge media archive, or a whole business backup.
Related 3 copies, 2 formats, 1 big problem: Why modern backups fail The '3-2-1' backup rule is finally outdated - here's what to do instead Posts 7 By Monica J.White Google's unlimited era died piece by piece Photos, schools, and Workspace all hit the wall Google's version of this story was more of a slow burn.Unlimited storage slowly disappeared from different parts of its ecosystem until there wasn't much of it left.
Google Photos is the example you most likely took note of; for years, it felt like a bottomless locker.In 2021, new 'High quality' (now Storage saver) photo uploads began counting toward the same 15GB pool as Gmail and Drive.New Docs, Sheets, Slides, and similar Workspace files started counting, too, which quickly chewed through storage.
The same thing happened on a bigger scale with schools and businesses.Google had long offered qualifying education customers unlimited storage, but it eventually moved them to a pooled model with a baseline of 100TB shared across the whole institution.That's still a lot of space, but it's not unlimited.
Dropbox proved the problem still wasn't fixed Even business plans could be gamed Now, Dropbox.In 2023, it ended the "as much space as you need" policy on its Advanced business plan and replaced it with a metered model.New teams with three active licenses now start with 15TB of shared storage, with 5TB added for each active license.
Generous, but not unlimited.As usual, a few bad apples spoiled it for the rest of us here.Dropbox said that some customers were buying Advanced subs for things like crypto and Chia mining.
The cloud didn't exactly run out of space But it would've done, eventually I'm not saying that Google, Microsoft, or Dropbox killed unlimited storage because their data centers were suddenly full.They had to kill it because the costs were too unpredictable.Most users may barely use them, but some really went all-out, and that meant the plans had to be curbed to continue making sense.
Unlimited cloud storage probably isn't coming back I can't see unlimited storage plans ever coming back.Modern cloud storage is all about caps, pooled allowances, and spelling everything out from A to Z so that it can't be abused so easily.It's a shame for those of us who weren't planning to upload 10 home servers' worth of data, but hey, it is what it is.
Lexar D40E Dual USB Flash Drive This will never replace unlimited cloud storage, but I still like this dual USB flash drive for transferring or storing files in a pinch.It goes up to 256GB.$30 at Amazon Expand Collapse
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