A little more than a year ago, we were amazed that Microsoft OneDrive (its cloud storage service) was offering a 1 terabyte (TB) of data storage for just $2.50 per month. But then, a month later, the price became (for businesses using Office 365) $2.50 per month for unlimited data storage. Wow! Unfortunately, a few people ruined that party by demonstrating to Microsoft that the size of “unlimited” could be a lot more than they ever imagined.

Earlier this month (11/2015), Microsoft announced they will no longer offer unlimited OneDrive storage as a feature offered to Office 365 Home, Personal or University subscribers. At the same time, they also tweaked their pricing for the business versions of Office 365. (Explainer: “Office” is the term Microsoft uses to brand its traditional suite of “productivity software” like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc. The number “365” is the term Microsoft uses to signal there is an online or cloud capability associated with the product, enabling the user to access the same documents on various devices.)

Why is Microsoft dropping its “unlimited data storage” plan?

“A small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings. In some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average. Instead of focusing on extreme backup scenarios, we want to remain focused on delivering high-value productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the majority of OneDrive users.”
– The OneDrive Team
In other words, a few people ruined it for the rest of us.

Just how much OneDrive storage is there in 75 terabytes?

Using the estimates of storage capcity in 1 TB made by Kelly Brown, an IT professional and adjunct faculty member for the University of Oregon, here are a list of file categories and how much of each it would take to fill up 75 TB of storage.

  • 15,000,000 songs
  • 18,750 movies
  • 23,250,000 photographs
  • 6,442,450,875 pages of Word documents
  • 12,884,902 books of 500 pages

New Pricing for Versions of Office 365 Used by Small Businesses

Helpful pricing comparisons can be found on the Microsoft website if you know where to look:

  • This one compares the three Business versions (up to 300 users)
  • This one compares the three Business versions with more detail along with information about the enterprise versions (over 300 users)

For small businesses, Office 365 comes in three flavors.

Office 365 Business Essentials:

  • Online versions of Office
  • Email with 50 GB mailbox
  • 1 TB file storage and sharing
  • HD video conferencing (via Skype)
  • Annually | $5/month
  • Monthly | $6/month

Office 365 Business:

  • 1 TB file storage and sharing
  • Fully installed Office on PC/Mac
  • Office apps on tablets and phones
  • (Note: Email not included)
  • Annually | $8.25/month/per user
  • Monthly | $10/month/per user

Office 365 Business Premium:

  • Email with 50 GB mailbox
  • 1 TB file storage and sharing
  • HD video conferencing
  • Fully installed Office on PC/Mac
  • Office apps on tablets and phones
  • Annually | $12.50/month/per user
  • Monthly | $15.00/month/per user

Illustration: Microsoft


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