Do We Really Need Unlimited Cloud Storage?

This morning, Microsoft did a good thing. A great thing. The folks at Redmond got together to give us a bit of an early Christmas present. To spoil us. They decided that everyone using Office 365 should get unlimited storage. Not a terabyte of storage or cheap storage, but unlimited storage. It’s totally awesome to have and other companies will likely follow suit, but do we really need it?

In mid-July, Microsoft announced that would it be rolling at a 1TB storage increase for all its Office 365 Home, Personal and University subscribers. But the team decided continue its push for cloud supremacy by upping its storage capacity into infinity. Office 365 users now have access to unlimited storage via OneDrive for free.

OneDrive and Office 365 launched this new offer today and will roll out over the next coming months, but you can click here to get some preferential treatment. Microsoft is the first company to offer unlimited cloud service with popular alternatives such as Box, DropBox and Google Drive hovering around the monthly $US10 mark for 1 TB of storage. Office 365 Personal currently runs for $US7 a month and you sign up for Home for $US10.

So overall, pretty cheap really!

Like many connected people, I have my data distributed across a few different services. Mostly that’s due to special offers or bonuses I have accumulated during my time on the internet. Google Drive, Box, OneDrive and Dropbox are all holding things for digital hoarder, Luke Hopewell.

Microsoft with its unlimited announcement this morning is a signal to everyone that you don’t need to keep your stuff in a bunch of different storage lockers anymore. Keep it in the one cloud with a company that will keep your data safe from both the baddies and the Feds.

But let’s think about it for a second: do we really need unlimited storage? Can anyone really say they would use such a thing? Point me to the customer that says that a terabyte of storage isn’t enough and I’ll show you 1000 customers who say differently.

I like to think I’m a big cloud user thanks to a tiny SSD on my primary laptop, but even with the amount of data I generate I’m still only storing 75GB in various clouds at the absolute most.

Plus, it took me an age to get my data up to the cloud thanks to the atrocious internet speeds offered in Australia. Getting that data up into the cloud and migrating it between carriers would take the rest of my natural life.

I love unlimited anything as much as the next user, but I’m worried Microsoft has given us a toy that none of us will be able to use thanks to what amounts to slow internet and general complacency.

How much data do you store in the cloud? Tell us in the comments!

Darren Orf contributed to this article


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