Microsoft in Novemeber, announced its decision to reduce OneDrive Free Cloud Storage offering from 15GB to 5GB. It however, had to reverse the decision due to widespread criticism from the user community. But it seems, that Microsoft has finally made up its mind (again), and will reduce the 15GB cloud storage space to just 5GB from 27th July, in an attempt to boost productivity and collaboration.
Their earlier unlimited storage plans were extensively being used to store entire movie collections and DVR recordings, so Microsoft had to make certain policy changes to curb such wastage of storage space.
Microsoft — in their official statement in November — announced that,
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. They will allow us to continue to innovate and make OneDrive the best option for people.
The company also decided to end the additional 15GB bonus offer a long time ago and as a result, the preview page doesn’t work anymore. So, if you were able to register yourself before 31st January, 2016, only then will you be eligible for the additional 15GB, else your storage will reduce to 5GB on July 27th. This also means that the new OneDrive account holders will directly fall under the 5GB category.
Microsoft has offered no insight on how it will handle the upgradation(or degradation!?) process, but it is definitely sure that the users will either be given a final date to secure the additional data(in excess of 5GB) they have stored on the platform, or perhaps a secondary storage of sorts to keep the excess data for a limited time, limited enough so that you can back it up and put it somewhere else.
