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Google is killing unlimited Drive storage for non-enterprise users
- ROARosen 6y ago>"A relatively small number of organizations in a few specific industries actually realize the full benefit of unlimited storage. " I love statements like the above, coming from a Google spokesperson. It basically implies "even though you are a customer but because you are small we don't care about your needs, even if it most customers like you don't utilize unlimited storage so it doesn't really cost us anything, but we want to make more money from you anyway".
- nojokes 6y ago> full benefit of unlimited storage I would like to know how would the full benefit of unlimited storage look like. When my write rate is somewhat less than Google is adding new storage then I am definitely not taking the full benefit. So how large can be the cap between these?
- Dylan16807 6y agoWell there is a 750GB per user per day limit for uploading, so maybe you have to be near that.
- googldrivetip 6y agoJust a tip, that limit is applied at the API level in a way that allows you to create limitless GCP Service Accounts and bypass that limit by manually granting them access to your Google Drive shares. I was able to upload ~6TB of data in about 2.5 days on a gigabit connection after discovering this.
- Dylan16807 6y agoYeah, I know, but I was talking about what it would take the get full use of what you're intended to use. Unless it was really urgent I don't think I'd ever try to pass that limit, even if I had a connection capable of it.
- res0nat0r 6y agoFrankly I'd love to have some type of Google/Dropbox VFS where I could store unlimited TB's of my movies connected to my kodi player and it would just transparently pull the file down like you can do with Dropbox Enterprise, vs. keeping my NAS backup in Glacier Deep Archive. The issue is it would cost 100+$/month to keep it in regular S3, and I'm sure Google is losing money on other folks importing TBs of data to their unlimited service unfortunately.
- Dylan16807 6y ago> The issue is it would cost 100+$/month to keep it in regular S3 Well $100 in S3 is $22 in B2. But that's still only about 4TB.
- res0nat0r 6y agoI need to backup ~25 TB, and still even with B2 that is $0.005 * 25,000 = $125.00. All near-realtime backup solutions IMO are too expensive at scale for a home user. The only thing I've found that is a good price is Glacier Deep Archive which is just $1.00/TB, but the only downside is you have to wait ~12-24 hours for a restore.
- thebean11 6y agoThe main downside to deep archive is the insane amount of money you will have to pay to get data out of it. They are not very transparent about how much it costs, the retrieval fees aren't bad but the egress fees are killer.
- res0nat0r 6y agoOh for sure, all egress at $0.09 is still frankly a rip-off and the one thing I do see AWS doing to keep people locked in. If this cheap storage class allowed for real-time reads I'd just store all my data on s3 and mount it via some kind of fuse filesystem and never restore it all for $5000, just stream on demand the movies / mp3s I randomly want to watch and would likely be cheaper in the long run than owning a big nas with hard drives.
- Nition 6y agoThe FULL benefit of unlimited storage is probably the whole world having free access to any form of media in one enormous shared archive, like an unlimited library of all things. Or maybe I'm not thinking big enough.
- kevincox 6y agoIf this was an honest statement I would expect "full benefit of unlimited storage" to mean using more than the new caps allow.
- throwaway2048 6y agoGoogle doesn't give a single shit about small operators, or individual in any other context, seems pretty par for the course for them.
- blablablerg 6y agole bait et le switch
- harikb 6y agoThe article is somewhat misleading. 1. The are raising prices from $12 to $20, not exactly "killing". But Google and "killing" in the same sentence is more attractive, I get it. 2. > have shown that Google has never enforced that limit. So they are enforcing a limit they didn't enforce before.
- Dylan16807 6y ago> The are raising prices from $12 to $20, not exactly "killing". But Google and "killing" in the same sentence is more attractive, I get it. If you have to have to work with a sales representative to buy it, and you have to make requests to google to get your quota increased, those are some significant barriers. It's fair to consider that a distinct offering and not just a price change. Also if this page is accurate then you need to pay $100 just to be able to request more storage. https://workspace.google.com/terms/user_features.html https://workspace.google.com/terms/user_features.html > So they are enforcing a limit they didn't enforce before. This is a new limit that applies for any number of users. If you had 5 or more users, it's a significant change in terms.
- adkadskhj 6y agoAlso the notion of requesting more storage in an unlimited buy is a no-go anyway for me. Don't try to sell me unlimited something and then get weird when i use it as labeled. Ugh.
- warrenq 6y agoWhen entities sell/promise unlimited, they expect some good faith behavior from the users. When your neighbor says, you can borrow my tools anytime he expects some good faith from you. You cannot go to his home everyday and borrow every tool and claim, but you said "anytime" Your local park also offers unlimited playground time. But if you start practically living there and start hogging the slides 100% of the time, there needs to be new rules. That's how society works. Can't believe this needs to be explained.
- alfredxing 6y agoTo be clear (and this is mentioned but not highlighted in the article), the previous Business plans were never guaranteed unlimited storage for orgs with fewer than 5 users ($60/month), the 1TB limit those orgs were supposed to have was just never enforced. I was one of those users, and the thought that the storage limit could start being enforced at any time was always in the back of my mind. Now I'm on the Enterprise plan and can worry a bit less.
- ubercow13 6y agoDid you have to request it from a sales agent?
- alfredxing 6y agoNo, it's available as a self-serve upgrade from the admin panel. Sales might be able to give discounts, but that's not very likely for an "enterprise" with 1 user :)
- flatiron 6y agoI did the same. I heard about the changes, saw the life boat that is the $20 upgrade and figured I would jump on that since it was an available upgrade. I have 41TB of "Linux ISOs" that I need to keep stored ;)
- cmurphycode 6y agoBut the new Workspace plan is still different for 5+ users: " Customers that have 5 or more End Users will receive a total amount of Google Drive storage equal to 5TB times the number of End Users, with more storage available at Google's discretion upon reasonable request to Google. " Existing customers (under G-suite) may be grandfathered for an arbitrarily long time, in which case I would agree you don't need to worry.
- ripdog 6y agoNote that I have heard of a number of data hoarders who have jumped onto those new enterprise plans with lots of data stored, and there are no reports of caps or data culls - yet.
- ljw1001 6y agoBurn investor money (or in this case, profits from your near monopoly position in another business) to give away something for free until your competitors are dead (or never enter the market in the first place. Then raise prices. And raise prices. This Model is the new Silicon Valley way. Consumers love it til the party stops
- phreeza 6y agoIs Dropbox dead?
- jeffbee 6y agoI had to check. Share price performance tracks Google pretty closely, YTD at least. https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/DBX#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 https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/DBX#eyJpbnRlcnZhbCI6ImRheSIs...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ApolloFortyNine 6y agoAs other commenters have pointed out, their has always been a limit <5 users, they've just never enforced it. However, this feature was massively abused for piracy, just see https://www.reddit.com/r/PlexACD/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PlexACD/ You could mount your google drive as a virtual drive and use it to store infinite movies/tv shows.
- Dylan16807 6y agoI don't know if I would say massively abused. Some people abused it for sure. But how many people put more data onto it than you could fit into a relatively normal NAS? I would think one off-the-shelf NAS is firmly within the scope of an unlimited data storage plan. Edit: Did I say something dumb? I don't think putting movie rips on this service is inherently an abuse, regardless of whether you ripped it yourself or pirated it. It's the amount that matters.
- judge2020 6y agoFWIW, they said nothing about shared drives, so all of the businesses that were/are going to need unlimited storage will be able to use shared drives for sharing files with their team. https://support.google.com/a/answer/7212025?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/7212025?hl=en
- Dylan16807 6y agoAre you suggesting that shared drives are exempt from the storage limit? If they said nothing about them I would expect the opposite. This storage limit for workspace business/enterprise is a single pool across an entire organization.
- judge2020 6y agoI have a unique perspective with having a GSuite for Nonprofits organization, and even though we technically have 30GB of storage per user[0]: > Unlimited users with 30 GB cloud storage each We also have shared drives which don't have a (number of bytes-based) storage limit, so I can't say exactly what happens to new Workspace Business tier orgs but I don't imagine shared drives will have a total storage limit. One thing I can say though is that there is a 400,000 file limit in shared drives: https://i.judge.sh/usable/Cake/chrome_9esxXJLYtr.png https://i.judge.sh/usable/Cake/chrome_9esxXJLYtr.png. 0: https://www.google.com/nonprofits/offerings/g-suite/#!#gsuite-pricing https://www.google.com/nonprofits/offerings/g-suite/#!#gsuit...
- silicon2401 6y agoReason n+1 why I've long since begun not trusting anything from google. When it comes to cloud storage, services, anything, I just consider it a non-option if it's by google.
- fizixer 6y agoI anyone is selling me unlimited drive storage today, then I have a 1000 yottabyte bridge to upload to you. There is no such thing as an unlimited drive storage offer.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TMWNN 6y agoYet again I'm glad to have unlimited Google Drive storage on my university alumni account. (You might too; check and see!)
- fomine3 6y agoI'm not fully aware but I think possibly the site's owner (univ admin?) can look your files. I'll encrypt files if I use such storage.
- TMWNN 6y agoI use rclone, which has built-in encryption (and is optional; I don't bother with encrypting copies of my Time Machine backup, because it's already encrypted), including even file and directory names.
- klodolph 6y agoWe knew this was coming we just didn’t know when. If you have unlimited storage, the data hoarders will find out about it and abuse it. Maybe three years ago, there was a post by someone using Amazon’s unlimited free storage to store camgirl streams and had amassed a petabyte or so. Cloud storage companies all eventually learn this lesson, but depending on the size of the company they can prop up the free storage options for a while. https://boingboing.net/2017/08/25/person-tests-amazons-unlim.html https://boingboing.net/2017/08/25/person-tests-amazons-unlim...
- akerro 6y ago>If you have unlimited storage, the data hoarders will find out about it and abuse it. There was a post about it from BackBaze. They know some people abuse it and put several Tbs on there, but they still make money on average as most people have 100s of Mb
- klodolph 6y agoAye, but the problem is the PBs, not the TBs, from what I can tell.
- mrguyorama 6y agoOne thing nobody really says is that backblaze actually requires everything you've backed up to be accessible to the computer at least once a month, so you can't actually delete something you've backed up unless you're willing to lose it in a month, or pay extra for the 1 year retention tier. Essentially you need to own the physical drive space to store anything on backblaze, so there's not much reason to abuse it.
- morpheuskafka 6y agoWonder how difficult it would be to patch the client or just make some sort of fake FUSE filesystem to bypass this.
- duncan_bayne 6y ago... what a surprise. People seem to think that Google didn't anticipate data hoarders, but in fact, this just seems like a standard hook to get people using a service. (Or a bait and switch, if you're less charitable). If anyone here is looking for a Drive alternative, I highly recommend the open source, P2P https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/. I use it to synchronise files between Linux, Android, FreeBSD devices including my home NAS.
- dodobirdlord 6y agoI don’t think Google cares to have gotten, or cares if they lose the data hoarder market. For everyone else, it’s not a bait and switch because nothing changed, and for the data hoarders it’s not like it’s a bait and switch because there’s no bait. They knew this day would come, as it always has with every other service that’s ever made a similar offer. The TOS already limited usage in a number of ways, but Google didn’t bother to enforce them because the data hoarders hadn’t made enough of a nuisance of themselves to bother.
- esyir 6y agoI don't think data hoarders have ever been a viable market for unlimited storage. That's literally giving money away for free. Most of the hoarder community has already been anticipating this for some time, so it's no surprise to us.
- tims33 6y agoFor any of these unlimited storage plans, there is a small set of user (<1%) who are massively unprofitable. On some level you can fire those users, but eventually they come back under a new guise. The easiest option is to eliminate these plans other than for larger corporations who tend to use storage more proportionately to their spend.
- marketingPro 6y agoI requested an export of my data from Google this weekend. They will lose my precious data. And I recently had a bug with the transition from Google play music to YouTube Music. It seems I lost my premium membership, I'm not sure I'll re-buy these services. Reading people's take on tech stocks long is laughable. In 1 year I have reduced my google usage in half, email and search only. And search I've reduced due to SEO gaming. Bing can be better.
- dontblink 6y agoYou are an anecdote though. I really dislike the Play Music -> Youtube Music transition as well, but I'm not cancelling. $15/month for my family not to watch Youtube ads + music is still OK.
- agbell 6y agoCan anyone recommend an alternative place to store a couple TBs of data offsite? I don't necessarily need backups, but somewhere to archive large files and get them back when need be. Right now I used google drive, and uncheck the folder when I no longer need it locally.
- julianz 6y agoWasabi's not bad. $5.99 a month per TB, plenty of ways to get your data in and out. I'm nothing to do with them but I back up a TB or so and it works well.
- anderspitman 6y agoI've been very happy with Backblaze B2. If I were starting from scratch today, I would probably give Wasabi a try due to their pricing (no egress charges). Whatever way you decide to go, I highly recommend becoming familiar with rclone if you aren't already. It's awesome.
- agbell 6y agoThanks, I'll check it out
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y agoBackblaze B2 is awesome
- gavreh 6y agoBackblaze B2
- thedudeabides5 6y agoAnd people say inflation is dead.
- tigerbelt 6y agoMotha fcking horseshit outta kkk loving google
- dbg31415 6y agoSeems relevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2F0wjoKEhg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2F0wjoKEhg
- 6510 6y agoI would like to see unlimited storage where the media gradually get smaller until you only have a dot and a file name.
- person_of_color 6y agoCan the world ever run out of data storage?
- atYevP 6y agoYev from Backblaze here -> what a fascinating question! You need storage to "generate" the data, and you need storage to "store" the data - so this is a fun thing to ponder!
- bleepblorp 6y agoIt's notable how much consumer abuse is on the rise lately, with businesses cutting wages for their employees, increasing prices, and cutting services, to punish us for not buying enough useless crap. In most cases, consumer abuse, like withdrawing 'unlimited' services, YouTube demanding users sign in, or Autodesk removing Fusion 360's personal use tier, net the abusive company little to no additional revenue. Their purpose is to exercise dominance over end users for not behaving the way the abuser feels entitled to.
- rnet85 6y agoI love how there is always an aspiring fiction writer in the comments. Woefully ignorant of the story, has an unrealistic expectation of limitless sevices. It must be cathartic to write victim hood takes like this.
- typedef_struct 6y agoFine, Google. Then I'm going to cancel the collab account I haven't used in months. Take THAT!
- Firerouge 6y agoIt would be nice if pro colab accounts came with gsuite enterprise
- slang800 6y agoGoogle Drive has never really offered unlimited storage. Once you get above about 0.75TB upload in one day they throttle down your upload speed or cut you off completely. It would take years to upload a petabyte, which keeps usage within well defined limits.
- papito 6y agoIt takes like 0.1% of users to match the amount of data that the other 99.9% are using. I may be off on that number, but not by a lot. The amount of data we are using may have changed since the 90's, but the data abuser formula will live until an asteroid hits and ends this in a sweet sweet fireball o' death oh please come soon.
- Ninjinka 6y agoDoes this mean the 4TB of storage I'm using through my university Drive account is going away?
- pnathan 6y agoInteresting. I don't particularly stint in my usage; Google reports I use 34 gigs in my old G Suite Business account. I will definitely pay more if I need to. I have some level of personal storage backing it, along with paid backups, but I trust Google SRE to store my data long term far more than I do. Having an equivalent infrastructure would be no small project, far more than $20/mo. I've had a few data loss events over the long years.
- saifulwebid 6y ago> I trust Google SRE to store my data long term far more than I do I don't trust Google (that much) to keep my account active before my death, as their automated tools can shut down my account anytime and leave me with no access to my data.
- pnathan 6y agoWell, that part of Google is less trustworthy, that is true. One reason I keep an orthogonal backup system that isn't Google.
- naing89 6y agoYayyy
- naing89 6y agoYo !
- techsin101 6y agowe really new way to store and access data. Some sites generate 2 GB per hour just for logs, let alone users uploading TBs of videos. 1 TB sounds a lot but it isn't. Imagine 4k security camera recording at 60 fps, 30 day back up videos, for 1 million customers. That's about 120 Gb * 30 * 10 * 1 million = 36000000 TB of data every month. Now do duo backups just in case and you need 72,000,000 TB of space.
- chillfox 6y agoIs there any open source self hosted alternatives to Google Drive that does on-demand sync instead of sync everything/selected folders? I have more stuff in Drive than any one of my computers can actually hold.
- cesarosum 6y agoDisclaimer: I am one of the Peergos devs. Yes, you should check out Peergos - https://peergos.org https://peergos.org. Self-hosting details are on our GitHub page - https://github.com/Peergos/Peergos https://github.com/Peergos/Peergos