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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Cloud Storage issues!

Many of you may have recently received a message something like this:

Important changes to OneDrive
There are some important changes to OneDrive, and we wanted to follow up on our previous email to ensure you are aware of them. On 6/29/2016, the amount of storage that comes with your OneDrive will change from 15 GB to 5 GB. We are also discontinuing the 15 GB camera roll bonus.
How this affects you
As a result of these changes, you will be over your storage limit (visit theStorage page to check your account). If you don't bring your OneDrive content under the new limits in the next 30 days, your account will become read only – you'll be able to access your content, but not upload files. If you do not take actionin one year, your content may be deleted. You can learn more at our FAQ.
What you can do
To bring your account within your storage limits:
We realize these are big changes to a service you rely on. We apologize for any frustration they may cause you.
Thank you for using OneDrive.
– The OneDrive Team

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This is really disconcerting of course, if you were one of the many that took advantage of many free offers to increase your one drive storage.  When cloud storage really started to become a thing and companies like dropbox, box, bitcasa came in to play directly competing with Google Drive and Microsoft's One Drive, they were all offering just a little bit better deal than the other guy.

Now, a year or so later, the storage wars have pretty much subsided in one regard, and that is you either pay for it or you basically get nothing. For this Microsoft has done just that, by shutting down the "small amounts" of storage for the paid customers, who are now offered 1 TB of storage.  Apple had been doing it for years, offering a measly 5 GB of icloud storage and then turning on by default, the photo library which would chew through the 5 GB in no time and would have you scrambling for your credit card to upgrade... 

Here's a tip: DON'T DO IT!   Before you ask (me) for advice on which is the best method to proceed.  I am witnessing first hand, hundreds of inqueries in to 'what do I do now?" I have all these files and I don't know how to get them out of there.. I have to do this quickly as my time is running out.. or should I just pay for the storage upgrade?  NO YOU SHOULD NOT PAY FOR THIS!  At least not  until you KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!  

The simple truth is these days we are too quick to pull out our credit card and just do as these companies ask of us. After all you may have been using it for a few years and feel this must be the way to proceed.  This is hopefully where I can be of some assistance, in both transferring the files out of there and in to the correct place as well as predict where things are going in the future. 

All you have to do is contact me and I can help get you pointed in the right direction!