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It sounds like it's McGill asking "And this is why we [McGill] are asking you to reduce the data stored in your OneDrive and in your Outlook email." https://w

It sounds like it's McGill asking "And this is why we [McGill] are asking you to reduce the data stored in your OneDrive and in your Outlook email." https://www.mcgill.ca/polling/channels/news/important-onedrive-and-mcgill-outlook-email-storage-space-reduction-354241 https://www.mcgill.ca/polling/channels/news/important-onedri... But, amazingly, Microsoft did argue this nonsense: 1. security risk of storing files 2. environmental impact 3. ability for Microsoft to innovate more by deleting your stuff https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft-365-storage-options https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft... Ministry of Truth... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministries_in_Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Ministry_of_Truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministries_in_Nineteen_Eighty-...

zinekeller 3y ago
Yeah, literally scrambled and verified but I still have 25Terabytes of data (this is the limit since forever) with no notice of reduction. I'm not saying that this isn't true, but I'm saying that McGill admins can set data limits. Edit: our IT admins are really baffled too and will now verify with Microsoft if this is an actual thing or just poor phrasing from McGill. Update: there'll be a change apparently but not this draconian. Storage will be limited to a minimum of 100GB/user with an additional 100TB "pooled" storage for everyone. While this is a shock to me and my admin, McGill's policy is still exceptionally draconian.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Terretta 3y ago
  25TB would be $750 monthly if I read it right. Compare that to datacenter NAS with RAID and with replica NAS redundancy and operating overhead (space, power, people), you're looking at a 9 months to 18 months price tradeoff before factoring in how to maintain a rotating set of users/accounts' storage. Storage is an area it's not difficult to do better than cloud if you are single user just storing one user's content, but it's much harder to do better than cloud if you have user management at scale to add in.
- tallanvor 3y ago
  What Microsoft is saying is that they're limiting OneDrive accounts to a max of 100GB, but that comes from the 100TB of pooled storage for students since those accounts are free. Faculty accounts (A3 or A5 licenses per a link posted by someone else) will add an additional 50 or 100GB of space since the school is actually paying for those licenses. And schools can buy additional storage in 10TB blocks. Clearly it's primarily a cost saving measure, and I suspect it will be a significant change for some schools, but I suspect the numbers chosen were based on what most schools are using.
misnome 3y ago
(Edit: Above post originally read only “Microsoft did no such thing” before edit. Evidently updated their post after actually reading the thread). Weird, you should tell Microsoft this, because I don’t know what it was before but the link in that thread says they are: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft-365-storage-options#AdditionalStorageItemId https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft... Limiting to 100TB pooled and $30/TB/month for extra storage. One of the reasons explicitly given being “Environmental Impact”
- zinekeller 3y ago
  It's honestly confusing but to be fair to Microsoft: > all institutions’ tenants will receive 100TB of free pooled storage across OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange, with an additional 50GB or 100GB of pooled storage per paid user for A3 and A5 subscriptions, respectively This is a bad change, period (plus the justification given is basically stepping on a gaping wound), but there are storage guarantees much greater than what McGill's are doing.
- Terretta 3y ago
  "Microsoft did no such thing" was about this post's headline, that Microsoft limited the students' storage. It did not. I changed the wording because "no such" is too strong since they did adjust pricing model 'plans', and they did give some (stupid) talking points McGill copy-pasted. Not sure what 'thread' you mean. If you mean Twitter, you are correct, I did not 'actually read the [Twitter] thread', I went to source at McGill and linked that here, then further linked to Microsoft policy update after using Kagi to find the Microsoft propoganda regurgitated by McGill: https://kagi.com/search?q=Microsoft%20is%20introducing%20changes%20to%20our%20service%20offering%20across%20our%20Microsoft%20365%20Education%20suite%20that%20require%20us%20to%20place%20limits%20on%20storage.%20As%20of%20May%2031st%2C%202024%2C%20students%20will%20have%2020GB%20(Gigabytes)%20of%20OneDrive%20storage%20space%2C%20in%20addition%20to%2020GB%20of%20Outlook%20email%20storage https://kagi.com/search?q=Microsoft%20is%20introducing%20cha.... To be clear, Microsoft is not making McGill limit student storage: "Every institution’s tenant has a 100TB base storage capacity. Microsoft 365 and Office 365 A3 and A5 paid user licenses add 50GB or 100GB respectively to the pool of storage. In addition, institutions can purchase additional pooled storage in 10TB increments for $300 estimated retail USD monthly to add to the tenant pool. To find your capacity, use this calculation: 100TB + (#A3 paid users x 50GB) + (#A5 paid users x 100 GB) + (additional storage purchased) = capacity/limit." McGill is making a choice, there is a reasonable price to maintain whatever pool McGill want, and Microsoft's argument for matching Google academic threshold drop was posted 6 months ago, no scramble needed.
dimask 3y ago
> Microsoft’s storage reduction is driven by security risks [...] > Sustainability is an important consideration that drove Microsoft to make that decision. Why is a university IT's announcement written as if by Microsoft's PR office? The style of the announcement is very weird. Has McGill outsourced all IT support services to Microsoft, thus it is written essentially by them?
_cenw 3y ago
Not every instance of Propaganda or Mass Surveilance warrants a 1984 reference. Very few in relation to how often it is invoked. Newspeak is very specifically about the idea of making some ideas impossible to express. You seem to be calling Microsoft's bullshit pretty well. (Simlarly, panopticism is about supressing expression of ideas though the threat of surveilance and subsequent repression, and going by how much political discourse has eroded, our version of surveilance capitalism doesn't seem to limit anyone from voicing their ideas, no matter how far it strays from prior social expectations of decency)
- Terretta 3y ago
  Doubleplusungood. Truthspeak in Oldspeak, Microsoft’s words unbellyfeel Ingsoc. In Newspeak, Microsoft’s words duckspeak, ungood fullwise. Realworldwise, Microsoft’s words bellyfeel blackwhite. Miniluv not need for ungood thinkpol – Microsoft own duckspeak does unperson wrongthink. Microsoft’s words own ungood crimethink. Plusungood.

zinekeller 3y ago

Yeah, literally scrambled and verified but I still have 25Terabytes of data (this is the limit since forever) with no notice of reduction. I'm not saying that this isn't true, but I'm saying that McGill admins can set data limits. Edit: our IT admins are really baffled too and will now verify with Microsoft if this is an actual thing or just poor phrasing from McGill. Update: there'll be a change apparently but not this draconian. Storage will be limited to a minimum of 100GB/user with an additional 100TB "pooled" storage for everyone. While this is a shock to me and my admin, McGill's policy is still exceptionally draconian.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Terretta 3y ago
25TB would be $750 monthly if I read it right. Compare that to datacenter NAS with RAID and with replica NAS redundancy and operating overhead (space, power, people), you're looking at a 9 months to 18 months price tradeoff before factoring in how to maintain a rotating set of users/accounts' storage. Storage is an area it's not difficult to do better than cloud if you are single user just storing one user's content, but it's much harder to do better than cloud if you have user management at scale to add in.
tallanvor 3y ago
What Microsoft is saying is that they're limiting OneDrive accounts to a max of 100GB, but that comes from the 100TB of pooled storage for students since those accounts are free. Faculty accounts (A3 or A5 licenses per a link posted by someone else) will add an additional 50 or 100GB of space since the school is actually paying for those licenses. And schools can buy additional storage in 10TB blocks. Clearly it's primarily a cost saving measure, and I suspect it will be a significant change for some schools, but I suspect the numbers chosen were based on what most schools are using.

misnome 3y ago

(Edit: Above post originally read only “Microsoft did no such thing” before edit. Evidently updated their post after actually reading the thread). Weird, you should tell Microsoft this, because I don’t know what it was before but the link in that thread says they are: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft-365-storage-options#AdditionalStorageItemId https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft... Limiting to 100TB pooled and $30/TB/month for extra storage. One of the reasons explicitly given being “Environmental Impact”

zinekeller 3y ago
It's honestly confusing but to be fair to Microsoft: > all institutions’ tenants will receive 100TB of free pooled storage across OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange, with an additional 50GB or 100GB of pooled storage per paid user for A3 and A5 subscriptions, respectively This is a bad change, period (plus the justification given is basically stepping on a gaping wound), but there are storage guarantees much greater than what McGill's are doing.
Terretta 3y ago
"Microsoft did no such thing" was about this post's headline, that Microsoft limited the students' storage. It did not. I changed the wording because "no such" is too strong since they did adjust pricing model 'plans', and they did give some (stupid) talking points McGill copy-pasted. Not sure what 'thread' you mean. If you mean Twitter, you are correct, I did not 'actually read the [Twitter] thread', I went to source at McGill and linked that here, then further linked to Microsoft policy update after using Kagi to find the Microsoft propoganda regurgitated by McGill: https://kagi.com/search?q=Microsoft%20is%20introducing%20changes%20to%20our%20service%20offering%20across%20our%20Microsoft%20365%20Education%20suite%20that%20require%20us%20to%20place%20limits%20on%20storage.%20As%20of%20May%2031st%2C%202024%2C%20students%20will%20have%2020GB%20(Gigabytes)%20of%20OneDrive%20storage%20space%2C%20in%20addition%20to%2020GB%20of%20Outlook%20email%20storage https://kagi.com/search?q=Microsoft%20is%20introducing%20cha.... To be clear, Microsoft is not making McGill limit student storage: "Every institution’s tenant has a 100TB base storage capacity. Microsoft 365 and Office 365 A3 and A5 paid user licenses add 50GB or 100GB respectively to the pool of storage. In addition, institutions can purchase additional pooled storage in 10TB increments for $300 estimated retail USD monthly to add to the tenant pool. To find your capacity, use this calculation: 100TB + (#A3 paid users x 50GB) + (#A5 paid users x 100 GB) + (additional storage purchased) = capacity/limit." McGill is making a choice, there is a reasonable price to maintain whatever pool McGill want, and Microsoft's argument for matching Google academic threshold drop was posted 6 months ago, no scramble needed.

dimask 3y ago

> Microsoft’s storage reduction is driven by security risks [...] > Sustainability is an important consideration that drove Microsoft to make that decision. Why is a university IT's announcement written as if by Microsoft's PR office? The style of the announcement is very weird. Has McGill outsourced all IT support services to Microsoft, thus it is written essentially by them?

_cenw 3y ago

Not every instance of Propaganda or Mass Surveilance warrants a 1984 reference. Very few in relation to how often it is invoked. Newspeak is very specifically about the idea of making some ideas impossible to express. You seem to be calling Microsoft's bullshit pretty well. (Simlarly, panopticism is about supressing expression of ideas though the threat of surveilance and subsequent repression, and going by how much political discourse has eroded, our version of surveilance capitalism doesn't seem to limit anyone from voicing their ideas, no matter how far it strays from prior social expectations of decency)

Terretta 3y ago
Doubleplusungood. Truthspeak in Oldspeak, Microsoft’s words unbellyfeel Ingsoc. In Newspeak, Microsoft’s words duckspeak, ungood fullwise. Realworldwise, Microsoft’s words bellyfeel blackwhite. Miniluv not need for ungood thinkpol – Microsoft own duckspeak does unperson wrongthink. Microsoft’s words own ungood crimethink. Plusungood.