Microsoft follows Apple's lead, slashes pricing for OneDrive cloud storage

Posted:
in General Discussion edited June 2014
The latest shot in the cloud storage wars came on Monday from Microsoft, which announced a restructuring of its OneDrive offering that will more than double users' base storage allowance, as the software giant reacts to recent price cuts from rivals Apple and Google.




Users will now start with 15 gigabytes of storage -- up from 7 gigabytes -- by default, a quota that Microsoft says should be enough for 75 percent of users to meet their storage needs without needing to pay. Jumping to 100 gigabytes will now cost just $1.99 per month, while 200 gigabytes moves to a $3.99 monthly subscription from $7.49 and $11.49, respectively.

In a blog post announcing the moves, Microsoft program manager Omar Shahine said that the new pricing structure will take effect next month. Existing users will have their recurring charges adjusted automatically.

Additionally, users with active subscriptions to the Office 365 service will see their allotment bumped to 1 terabyte per person.

As traditional computers move to faster, lower-capacity solid state drives and mobile devices play a larger role in computing, cloud storage has become another battlefront for major software and hardware vendors. Google, for instance, announced similar price cuts for its Google Drive service in March.

Apple has not been left out in the cold, unveiling iCloud Drive -- a new Dropbox-style cloud file locker -- at its annual developers conference earlier this month alongside less costly storage plans for iCloud. 20 gigabytes of space will cost users just $11.88 per year from the iPhone maker, with 200 gigabytes ringing in at $47.88 yearly.

The only company that has not responded with cuts is nominal market leader Dropbox, which has not yet moved from its long-standing $99 and $199 yearly price points that yield 100 gigabytes and 200 gigabytes of storage, respectively. Dropbox appears to have eschewed price competition in the consumer space in favor of a strategy that would have it break rival Box.com's hold in the enterprise.
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 29
    sacto joesacto joe Posts: 895member
    It's time to raise the visibility of how the electricity powering these Cloud servers is being generated. Amazon uses large amounts of cheap energy produced by coal-burning power plants, for example. And the "cost" of carbon is not being added to the price or that energy. In effect, the world is unwittingly subsidizing the use of dirty energy.
  • Reply 2 of 29
    waterrocketswaterrockets Posts: 1,231member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sacto Joe View Post



    It's time to raise the visibility of how the electricity powering these Cloud servers is being generated. Amazon uses large amounts of cheap energy produced by coal-burning power plants, for example. And the "cost" of carbon is not being added to the price or that energy. In effect, the world is unwittingly subsidizing the use of dirty energy.

     

    Yeah, it's pretty amazing when you think about the energy requirements of moving everything to "the cloud." I'm not convinced that we have any energy savings at home because of these services.

     

    At least some are working on it already.

     

    [edit]

    These guys too :)  (though it took forever to get to this page past the non-working video)

    [/edit]

  • Reply 3 of 29
    konqerrorkonqerror Posts: 685member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Sacto Joe View Post



    It's time to raise the visibility of how the electricity powering these Cloud servers is being generated.

     

    That's completely perceived. About 3% of energy usage in the US is by computers, 10 times less than lighting. The biggest energy user in the US is not industry, but people's houses.

     

    If you changed one incandescent lightbulb to a LED, you'd offset your 15 GB of data and then some.

  • Reply 4 of 29
    konqerrorkonqerror Posts: 685member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by waterrockets View Post

     

    Yeah, it's pretty amazing when you think about the energy requirements of moving everything to "the cloud." I'm not convinced that we have any energy savings at home because of these services.

     


     

    A desktop computer is about 100 W, not counting display. A single Google server is about 200 W. A NAS box is maybe 20-30 W. As long as their server can handle more than 2 people's data (which is obvious), then it's better than keeping yours desktop on, and at 10-15 people, better than a NAS.

    (This was meant to be one post but I messed it up somehow)

  • Reply 5 of 29
    mazda 3smazda 3s Posts: 1,613member

    1) Why is Microsoft's OneDrive pricing listed as $$$/month, whereas the Apple iCloud pricing listed as $$$/year? Shouldn't the same units be used for both?

    2) How is this following Apple's lead? When has Apple led on cloud storage pricing? Google started the cloud storage price wars back in March by offering 15GB for free and 100GB for $1.99/month.

    3) I wish Apple would up its free storage allotment. 5GB is looking pretty slim these days compared to offerings from Google and Microsoft.

    4) I had no interest before in subscribing to Office 365, but for $6.99/month with 1TB of cloud storage (to cover my rMBP and iPad mini Retina), Microsoft just may have sold me.

  • Reply 6 of 29
    kkqd1337kkqd1337 Posts: 424member
    what a dumb headline. iCloud is/was/and will be more expensive than Microsoft going forwards and OneDrive has far more features AND is cross platform. There is no comparison and certainly no 'following' - proper trolling headline.
  • Reply 7 of 29
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    FWIW other sites and news reports have framed this as [B]Microsoft answering Google's Cloud pricing and storage[/B] rather than copying Apple's iCloud service.
  • Reply 8 of 29

    Hell, they can change it to 15 TB of "OMG only $7/month!111!!!" and it makes no difference.

     

    Serious non-trolling question here - who has the time and bandwidth to dump 1TB of stuff onto an individual "cloud storage" drive? Restoring from backup would require at least a day or two on a bog-standard 50mbps Cable ISP line, depending on traffic congestion at the local docsis.

     

    I have a mini-NAS at home that can back up or restore 4TB of stuff in way less time (USB 3), and it only eats power maybe once every couple of weeks, when I bother to hook it up, turn it on, and then fire up TimeMachine. The bottleneck there is the HDD in the laptop.

  • Reply 9 of 29
    rs9rs9 Posts: 68member
    Do people really need one Tb of storage in the cloud no less. Someone; somewhere very likely has access to all of ones goodies in the cloud. Encrypted or not I wouldn't store anything important there...
  • Reply 10 of 29
    mazda 3smazda 3s Posts: 1,613member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Penguinisto View Post

     

    Hell, they can change it to 15 TB of "OMG only $7/month!111!!!" and it makes no difference.

     

    Serious non-trolling question here - who has the time and bandwidth to dump 1TB of stuff onto an individual "cloud storage" drive? Restoring from backup would require at least a day or two on a bog-standard 50mbps Cable ISP line, depending on traffic congestion at the local docsis.

     

    I have a mini-NAS at home that can back up or restore 4TB of stuff in way less time (USB 3), and it only eats power maybe once every couple of weeks, when I bother to hook it up, turn it on, and then fire up TimeMachine. The bottleneck there is the HDD in the laptop.


     

    Why would you need to backup 1TB word of data all at once? I backup large amounts of data over an extended period of time. As I accumulate media, content, I back it up to the cloud. Not all at once.

  • Reply 11 of 29
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    What lead did Apple ever have in cloud storage pricing?
  • Reply 12 of 29
    Fantastic news. I already thought Office 365 Home was worth the $99 a year for 5 users.

    Now they're giving me 5 TB of data (1 TB per user)? I'm quite speechless, actually.
  • Reply 13 of 29
    froodfrood Posts: 771member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



    What lead did Apple ever have in cloud storage pricing?

     

    They had 'high score', or close to it, for quite a while in cloud storage pricing :p

  • Reply 14 of 29
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    konqerror wrote: »
    That's completely perceived. About 3% of energy usage in the US is by computers, 10 times less than lighting. The biggest energy user in the US is not industry, but people's houses.

    If you changed one incandescent lightbulb to a LED, you'd offset your 15 GB of data and then some.

    I agree, LED lighting everywhere should be mandated. Just fly at night and look down at any large urban area ... (or use a satellite view).
  • Reply 15 of 29
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    rs9 wrote: »
    Do people really need one Tb of storage in the cloud no less. Someone; somewhere very likely has access to all of ones goodies in the cloud. Encrypted or not I wouldn't store anything important there...

    I am pretty sure for PC users it would be safer! Mac maybe not so much.
  • Reply 16 of 29
    randianrandian Posts: 76member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee View Post



    Fantastic news. I already thought Office 365 Home was worth the $99 a year for 5 users.



    Now they're giving me 5 TB of data (1 TB per user)? I'm quite speechless, actually.

    Yes, but it's not a single quota of 5 TB. If I understand it correctly you can't use this to have > 1 TB for a user even though you have a total of 5 TB available. Being a Windows-centric service, I wonder how correct OneDrive's handling of OSX permissions and extended attributes is.

  • Reply 17 of 29
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    Dropbox,

    I believe it is your move...
  • Reply 18 of 29
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    I have a mini-NAS at home that can back up or restore 4TB of stuff in way less time (USB 3), and it only eats power maybe once every couple of weeks, when I bother to hook it up, turn it on, and then fire up TimeMachine. The bottleneck there is the HDD in the laptop.

    Any onsite-only backup is open to failure by theft, fire, or Sharknado.
  • Reply 19 of 29
    herbapouherbapou Posts: 2,228member
    Hell, they can change it to 15 TB of "OMG only $7/month!111!!!" and it makes no difference.
    I have a mini-NAS at home that can back up or restore 4TB of stuff in way less time (USB 3), and it only eats power maybe once every couple of weeks, when I bother to hook it up, turn it on, and then fire up TimeMachine. The bottleneck there is the HDD in the laptop.

    If a burglar takes everything or youre house catch on fire this will help you how?
  • Reply 20 of 29
    herbapouherbapou Posts: 2,228member
    I agree, LED lighting everywhere should be mandated. Just fly at night and look down at any large urban area ... (or use a satellite view).

    In the US and Canada the biggest energy consumption are by far heat / air conditionning folllow by home appliance.
Sign In or Register to comment.