back to article Microsoft's OneDrive price hike has wrecked its cloud strategy

Microsoft's changes to its OneDrive personal cloud storage prices reflect badly on the company, and have left users angry and bewildered. Most people have at least 30GB of free OneDrive storage: 15GB as standard, and an additional 15GB bonus easily obtained by setting the camera roll on a mobile device to use OneDrive for …

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  1. Dwarf
    FAIL

    Never had this problem...

    With my personal hard discs - I just add as many as I want for MY data.

    So much for cloud - if you have to decide which pictures of your kids or long lost relatives you want to keep - just to be under some arbitrary threshold.

    Also, thinking about averages, there will ALWAYS be values above and below the average, irrespective of how many times you average the resulting data, the trend is always downwards - just like they use the average speed to lower the speed limit on some roads in the UK ... which is equally barmy.

    1. Dadmin
      Pint

      Re: Never had this problem...

      Nice!

      I also use this storage strategy, and as far as I can tell the "company" that is currently keeping track of my personal data has not; gone out of business, sold my data to a "more-evil" vendor, lost it, got it stolen by Ukrainian script-kidniks, accidentally erased it, gave a copy to the government for "safe keeping", eaten it, eaten it then crapped it out then tried to put it back on a storage device, dropped it on the data center floor and had it get caught underneath a rack and the guy with the rack keys is at lunch and ... you see what I mean.

      1. CM2016

        Re: Never had this problem...

        LOL. You don't know the govt. has not read it or won't read it again in the future. Its read AUTO by govt. even if a person is not reading it.

    2. Craigness

      Re: Never had this problem...

      It's not a problem. You can just add as much storage as you want for YOUR data.

    3. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: Never had this problem...

      I just priced up my home storage: between 0.25 and 0.30 US$ / month / 50GB depending on scale (dual redundant, replace every two years, includes electricity). The other bonuses are my setup does not suffer from slow internet days and I get two free (wimpy) servers. Microsoft would have a tough sell at one tenth of their new price.

      1. mark 177

        Re: Never had this problem...

        What about off-site backups and syncing between different devices?

        Not that I would suggest OneDrive for this for a second - although I get it free with Office365, I am paying $100 a year for 1 TB with Dropbox.

        1. Dwarf

          Re: Never had this problem...

          Yea, got that covered too. External hard drives with encrypted content stored at family members houses and of course we do the same for them, or you can use safety deposit boxes or some random cloud provider as backup if you prefer, then you have no real risk if they fail, or change their pricing. Just find another one, or split your data across them.

          Syncing content across devices - no need, just like I don't take my toaster to work every day. Just because I have it, doesn't mean I need to have it with me all the time. Do you really need last years tax return, or the letter to the school, or some random data for an app your various mobile devices can't read to be with you all the time ?. It's also more secure if you loose a mobile device - no risk of your data being accessed.

          Of course, if you prefer the vagrant approach of carrying all your belongings with you then that's your choice.

          1. Bert 1
            Thumb Up

            Re: Never had this problem...

            My solution to the offsite backup:

            Old PC with USB disks added running NAS4free, placed in a detached garage, and connected with powerline networking to automatically back up my file server twice a week.

          2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
            Windows

            Re: Never had this problem...

            "Of course, if you prefer the vagrant approach of carrying all your belongings with you then that's your choice."

            Now there's a thought. Once upon a time we had Windows for Teletubbies. With the cloud first approach maybe they were aiming at Windows for bag ladies.

          3. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

            Re: Never had this problem...

            "Yea, got that covered too. External hard drives with encrypted content stored at family members houses "

            What do you do about the hideously slow upload rate that your ISP provides? well mine does anyway.

            I like to sync my NASes by via gigabit switch. Thinking off putting one in the garage to cover "off site" support - theres a 6 metre fire gap :)

            1. Dwarf

              Re: Never had this problem...

              Fibre broadband around here, so 60Mbps down, 16Mbls up are typical.

              Once you have done the initial copy, the data volumes are low, so just start with the new backup on site across the LAN, then switch to the WAN for the deltas only. If you need to do a full restore, then you might need to go and drink coffee with the family first.

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Never had this problem...

              '"Yea, got that covered too. External hard drives with encrypted content stored at family members houses "

              What do you do about the hideously slow upload rate that your ISP provides? well mine does anyway.'

              Whaaa? External drives! Unplug them & take them there, no ISP involved. Bandwidth similar to a van-load of tapes on the motorway. The bandwidth will be fine, it's just the latency he has to worry about.

              1. Chris Parsons

                Van-load of tapes

                Indeed, as the very wonderful Andrew Tanenbaum said in his book on data comms, 'if it's bandwidth you're looking for, it's hard to beat a truckload of tapes barreling down the highway' - or something like that.

                1. werdsmith Silver badge

                  Re: Van-load of tapes

                  I have a 75MB in the cloud, 5GB is a staggering amount.

                  1. TheVogon

                    Re: Van-load of tapes

                    "I have a 75MB in the cloud, 5GB is a staggering amount."

                    It's ~5000 photos from a decent mobile camera. Not hard to exceed at all.

                    1. Chemist

                      Re: Van-load of tapes

                      "It's ~5000 photos from a decent mobile camera. Not hard to exceed at all."

                      Certainly 5000 photos in RAW format from my 6D would be ~150GB, and clips from my HD video would add 3MB/sec.

        2. dmacleo

          Re: Never had this problem...

          cheap vps with owncloud installed.

    4. TheVogon

      Re: Never had this problem...

      "Microsoft's OneDrive price hike has wrecked its cloud strategy"

      Nope, it's much more cunning than that. They are giving everyone affected a year's free Office 365 (1TB of OneDrive space) remember....Once that expires, a significant percentage of people will be too lazy to move their stuff and it will renew onto a paid subscription....happy days for Microsoft.

      Microsoft are storming ahead in cloud - it's primarily for this reason that they recently announced record profits and the Microsoft share price is the highest it's been for ~ 15 years...

      1. stim

        Re: Never had this problem...

        This.

        This is exactly what I was thinking too.

    5. kmac499

      Re: Never had this problem...

      Yup; That's why I've go a cheap NAS Box with 2*3TB Raided in it.

      Total cost about £250.

      All I need now is a Backup Buddy with a similarly ovesized lump of kit and we can do offsite for each other..

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Strategy?

    When I was testing Windows 10 (not any longer) I came to appreciate the point of OneDrive as a means to keep multiple Win10 installations up with each other - without it the concept of 'One OS across all your devices' is pretty meaningless.

    That use of cloud storage is a little different from the idea of using it for bulk 'unlimited' storage, and I can see how Microsoft might have realised that the free storage had to be reined back.

    One point I noticed on the Insider forums was a common complaint about OneDrive - ie that it was no longer possible to have simple links to the OneDrive storage - you had to download it all. Maybe that was a sign of the strategy to limit the free storage - discouraging people from using it to share massive amounts of data.

    It's all a bit 'meh' to me as (1) Transition to Win10 is off my 'to do' list and (2) I would never have used more than a gigabyte or two of OneDrive storage anyway - anything important to me isn't going anywhere near cloud storage if I have a choice.

  3. Martin an gof Silver badge
    Meh

    Coincidence?

    75TB being 14,000 times the average use implies that the average use is just over 5GB. If that 14,000 figure counts all OneDrive use, not just that of O365 users, then perhaps the choice of 5GB to be the "free" space now on offer is explained?

    M.

    1. Ogi

      Re: Coincidence?

      Well yeah, if a bunch of people open accounts but end up never using the service, it will swing the average right down to something silly, like 5GB.

    2. Fibbles

      Re: Coincidence?

      I'm pretty sure Hotmail (or whatever they're calling it these days) offers an inbox larger than 5GB. It's pretty sad that theyve gimped their cloud storage so much that emailing yourself backups is a better option.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What we're they storing to fill 75tb?

    They must be the hoarders of the cloud storage customer world.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Complete movie collections and such, apparently.

    2. DavCrav

      "What we're they storing to fill 75tb?

      They must be the hoarders of the cloud storage customer world."

      Big data sets, for example. A friend of mine works in fMRI research, and each data set she works on is 2TB or so, so she has to go with the external hard drive option if she wants to work at home.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        WTF?

        "Big data sets, for example. A friend of mine works in fMRI research"

        > Professional Settings

        > TiB of data

        > One OneDrive Personal Cloud

        > From home

        Not even once.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Trust, indeed

    It's why I have no plans to switch from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

    I own Windows 7, and I have serious concerns about how much Microsoft plans to charge me and others in future for service updates (or simply to keep the OS running on old hardware) once they've migrated the majority of users.

    This cloud decision makes me believe it will be "as much as they think they can get away with".

    1. John Crisp

      Re: Trust, indeed

      "I own Windows 7"

      Errr no you don't... you have a tightly controlled licence to use it.

      Price hikes.... did anyone seriously believe that Microsoft wouldn't turn the screws to extract more profit for shareholders once they got sufficient users ?

      They run a business, not a charity. Unlike the Chocolate Factory they do not have the advertising revenue stream and have to make the ROI somewhere.

      Windows 10 users will feel it in the wallet eventually. It's just a matter of time to get enough users hooked. Anyone who believes otherwise must also believe in fairy tales !

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Trust, indeed

        Why are people still using Windows? What is the attraction? Is it office? Perhaps a third party product makes it a must have? Quickbooks? Is it because it plays music? Movies?

        Is it a habit or an addiction?

        1. Mark 85

          @AC -- Re: Trust, indeed

          For some of us, it's being stuck there. Not about habit or addiction. We buy hardware that has support for one or maybe two OS's. In my case it's a laser cutter. I'm stuck with Windows. Not to say that I wouldn't got to Mint (and am planning on it) but I will still need a dedicated Win machine to run the cutter. I know of a bunch of other folks in the same basket... specialized hardware and only one OS available.... But, we are as a group and individually testing and looking for solutions so we don't have replace some expensive equipment.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Why are people still using Windows?

          That and Macs are "overpriced"™️ and Linux desktops still look like they were designed by 7 year olds.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Why are people still using Windows?

            "...and Linux desktops still look like they were designed by 7 year olds."

            Funny, at work I have a Windows desktop alongside an Ubuntu one and use a variety of apps on each every day. There is far more visual consistency on the Ubuntu desktop between the OS and applications than there is on the Windows one, and even between Office and Windows itself (Office doesn't inherit the OS theme settings).

            Ubuntu isn't as sexy as say OS X, but it's certainly a lot easier on the eyes than Windows 10 and there are far more visual cues. Red Hat has a more simple and professional look by comparison, if not a little boring, but certainly not amateur. Aero in Win 7 still looks pretty slick to this day so it's sad that things have gone backwards on that platform.

            1. Fihart

              Re: Why are people still using Windows?

              Even to a Linux newbie the Peppermint (Ubuntu) desktop looks logical and uncluttered compared to Windows. A bit plain-Jane maybe, but this is an operating system not entertainment. Hasn't got all the Win toys as standard and CDs and MP3s stutter but, most stuff works or can (presumably) be added.

              Mostly I'm impressed by opening and closing speed -- and that updates are quick and trouble-free.

              Cloud storage makes sense for portables but, for a desktop PC, external drives are cheap.

          2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Why are people still using Windows?

            " Linux desktops still look like they were designed by 7 year olds."

            Those must be the ones still trying to look like Windows for Teletubbies. You do realise, don't you, that with Linux you not only have a choice* of desktop systems but you can also theme them to a greater or lesser extent.

            *If you're a Windows user - or a marketing shill who's probably actually using a Mac - you may need to look this up in a dictionary.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: (patronising) "choice"

              Alright Mr Snarky McPissy. Look up Hobson's choice, because that is what you have in freetard land.* Choice is great, and it's what all you freetards chant when challenged, but what good is it when it's all shit?

              *Hobsons choice is what Mac and PC users have, still better than all the choice that is available in Linux land. Seem my original comment struck a nerve with the loudmouthed over-represented freetards here...

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: (patronising) "choice"

                "but what good is it when it's all shit?"

                It depends what's all shit. As it happens I spent the greater part of the afternoon trying to work out a problem with a Windows 7 laptop owned by a friend of my wife's. It had been OK until a few days ago, when it was working all morning & not since. Neither IE nor Firefox worked - the former came up blank with "not responding"on the title bar, the latter displayed nothing, just a busy cursor for a few seconds. Internet connection was there - ping to Google worked and my Mint laptop had no problems. Ran virus scan. Ran Windows diagnostics which couldn't identify a problem. Disabled firewall. Re-enabled firewall. Nothing. Eventually I removed the adaptor for a wireless mouse, rebooted and got a major hang - nothing responding but the fan working overtime. Cut the power, replaced the dongle, rebooted & got the screen offering safe mode, went for a normal reboot & the thing started working properly for no obvious reason.

                Yup. All shit.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: (patronising) "choice"

                  That's UX, not UI. The UX on most recent desktop Linuxes is still woefully lacking, and advice online still tends to defer to the command line almost immediately. The UI's are just badly designed. They aren't nice to use and the paradigms are all over the place. OpenStep is out there and it is arguably one of the best desktop environments ever made, but it is eschewed for Gnome/Mint [Cinnamon|Mate]/Unity/KDE, which is maddening! Defeat from the jaws of victory.

          3. fajensen

            Re: Why are people still using Windows?

            and Linux desktops still look like they were designed by 7 year olds.

            Then replace it with another one. It may be rocket science for hamsters, not for people.

          4. nijam Silver badge

            Re: Why are people still using Windows?

            > ... look like they were designed by 7 year olds

            Shame Windows 10 doesn't look that good.

          5. Chika
            Trollface

            Re: Why are people still using Windows?

            I see the trolls are out again.

            As for the whole OneDrive shrinkage business, well, I don't want to say "I told you so" but...

            1. John Sanders
              Holmes

              Re: Why are people still using Windows?

              "The cost of storage continues to fall"

              But it has a cost.

              Microsoft was giving it away for free.

              The laws of economics say: All resources are finite, and for a free resource there is infinite demand.

              Hence this cloud business at some point has to make money somehow, by that point MS, Google, AWS will have what they came here for.

          6. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Why are people still using Windows?

            "That and Macs are "overpriced"™️ and Linux desktops still look like they were designed by 7 year olds."

            Better designed by a smart 7 year old than a bunch of blind idiots which is the impression the Win 8 GUI gave and the Win10 not being appreciably better other than having a start menu.

          7. TonyJ

            Re: Why are people still using Windows?

            That is as spurious as the Linux fanboys who won't use Windows based on how it was 20+ years ago.

            You need to actually try a modern version of Linux. You may have valid complaints about it (I've yet to find one that is quite 100% "right" for all of my uses but never struggle to find one that can do what I need...).

            Did you ever see the horror that was Windows 8?

            Windows 10 has some really dubious design decisions - I found out last night by accident that pinch-to-zoom works on the wireless selection window!

            I use Windows 99% of the time. I've built my career in the Microsoft world, so you can hardly call me a Linux fanboy, but.... (and this is to both sides of the table), do try to keep up!

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Why are people still using Windows?

              "You need to actually try a modern version of Linux"

              Tried it. Amongst many other failings, like having to compile software with obscure text commands before you can install it?! the most notable for me was that to change the config you often have to edit in a text editor multiple randomly distributed and inconsistently formatted text files. (Which means no granular change control / permissioning / auditing) It's like going back to Windows from 20 years ago, but worse!

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Why are people still using Windows?

                "Tried it."

                No you haven't and it's brutally obvious when you recycle 1990's headlines.

                I admin a network that has hundreds of Linux desktops and thousands of Linux servers. No compilation needed. You simply don't need to compile software unless you have very, very specific requirements. Most software comes in RPM or Deb packages and with a respective repository. That way you use the same mechanism for updating everything, and you don't have to play lottery when patching, hoping that nothing breaks.

                Software from lazy vendors that is distributed as a tarball (or worse, a self-extracting binary) is usually pretty simple to convert into a proper RPM or Deb package if you are working at scale. Yum/RPM and it's ilk make Windows Update and MSI packages look positively clumsy by comparison.

                Obviously much the above isn't in the realm of the home user, but for vendors that aren't lazy, all that a home user needs to do installing their products from proper Deb packages is simply a matter of download, double-click, enter an admin password and click Install. So when done properly, it's very straightforward for basic users and scales easily for sysadmins.

                Text files have permissions applied to them as appropriate and change control is as simple as Git or Subversion. Try that with the registry mess. Throw in Puppet and you get massive scalability as well. It's easy.

                I cut my teeth on Windows and spent ten years as a Windows systadmin. Trying out 'nix was a breath of fresh air. Sure it has plenty of faults (everything does), but let's talk about the real ones instead of the tripe above.

        3. thomas k

          Re: Is it a habit or an addiction?

          Necessity - PC gaming. Some of us have no desire to game on a console using a controller so we're stuck.

          1. Kevin Johnston

            Re: Is it a habit or an addiction?

            I use a mouse and keyboard to game on my console.....even my son admits I am a damn sight better that way than failing to work the controller properly.....the mouse enables really fine control on a selected X-Y which I could never achieve with a controller

        4. Alan Potter 1

          Re: Trust, indeed

          Photoshop.

          Lightroom.

          Topaz Labs plugins.

          Citrix receiver for the wife (not sure if there is a Linux flavour of this)

          I'm sure there are alternatives to Photoshop and Lightroom, but TBH I'm not interested enough to learn 'em

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