News - Microsoft expands free One Drive cloud storage to 15GB

[HEXUS]

Office 365 subscribers also get a boost to 1TB of storage space.

Read more.

[crossy]

I'd be kind of interested - I've got 8GB of free dropbox, so Microsoft's offering is nearly twice that.

Downside though is while there's support for Android, there's no official support for Linux (http://xybu.me/projects/onedrive-d/ is available as a beta).

Same deal with Google Drive, Android and Windows support, but Linux is "coming soon" and has been for a long time. Which is strange considering Google is supposedly a big Linux user.

[TheAnimus]

It used to be 15gb free a while back, but MS dropped it too 'compete' with dropbox / google drive.

I think they thought they were giving away too much for free. That said I think I've got 1.5TB of skydrive space available at the moment now, which is great, because I'll stop using hub.ic, save a few quid a month.

[LSG501]

It used to be 15gb free a while back, but MS dropped it too 'compete' with dropbox / google drive.

I think they thought they were giving away too much for free. That said I think I've got 1.5TB of skydrive space available at the moment now, which is great, because I'll stop using hub.ic, save a few quid a month.

you sure it wasn't 25GB... I've got 25 on my main account (plus 20GB extra from a promotion) and as much as I'd love to use it as online storage I'm just not secure enough with using it for anything important/business related not to mention it's limited to 2GB file sizes

[Saracen]

.....

All in all, the war between cloud storage services is definitely good news for customers. Are you already a One Drive user, or will the expanded free storage capacity, lowered extra capacity prices and office bundles make you become one?

No, I'm not, and no, it won't.

Nothing, but NOTHING will induce me to put my "personal data" on MS servers. Or any cloud servers, for that matter. Ever.

Well, I say nothing. If MS care to donate enough to my personal finances to allow me to buy a nice, guarded personal retreat, maybe on a private island, where I can live in blissful isolation from the real world and sue both the knickers and backside skin clean off of anyone intruding, then maybe I'll change my name and do a 21st Century Howard Hughes impression. So, that'll be a few billion quid, please.

But back on planet reality, NOTHING in the realm of the realistic will see me putting "personal data" on the cloud. I would, absolutely honestly, rather go offline entirely, scrap my computers and do without a net connection at all.

Nor, for that matter, am I interested in Office365 bundles.

I have all the Office software I need and, even if unsupported now, I'm NOT moving to a subscription model. Office 365 might be a tempting proposition for some, and if so, fair enough and each to his/her own. Me? Non-starter.

Microsoft will automatically move current subscribers to the price plans detailed above, its blog post also revealed why it has generously upped everyone's storage limit. This should allow most people to store all their personal data in the cloud, as its research suggested that "3 out of 4 people have less than 15 GB of files stored on their PC."

That's part of the problem, MS. It's in the name .... "personal" data. Do I trust you with it? Hell, no. And I don't care what precautions you, or anyone else, says are in place, like security, encryption, etc. I trust neither your competentence nor integrity. So, not happening. End of.

[xadmin]

Guys, check out the cloud storage Copy. I use both OneDrive and Copy currently, but Copy offers you more space for free. Both are good and both come with the desktop client to sync your files to their cloud servers. Check it out and use this link to sign up for Copy to get 20GB free instead of the regular 15GB

https://copy.com

[TheAnimus]

you sure it wasn't 25GB... I've got 25 on my main account (plus 20GB extra from a promotion) and as much as I'd love to use it as online storage I'm just not secure enough with using it for anything important/business related not to mention it's limited to 2GB file sizes

You are right, it was 25GB!

Tbh I wouldn't use any cloud for anything that you are worried about, it's simply trusting someone else. However, you could always encrypt it before storage, if its the kind of thing that someone in 10 years time breaking the crypto wouldn't matter for.

[Saracen]

You are right, it was 25GB!

Tbh I wouldn't use any cloud for anything that you are worried about, it's simply trusting someone else. However, you could always encrypt it before storage, if its the kind of thing that someone in 10 years time breaking the crypto wouldn't matter for.

You could, and it is, for some, an acceptable solution. It is, also, a bit of a risk.

Either you have to encrypt everything, at file level, which can be a pain. Or you have to split your data between anything you're "worried about", and therefore encrypt, and stuff you're not, and therefore don't. If you keep all data in one place, you risk confusion, and something that should be encrypted ending up in the cloud in the clear. If you store data in different places, like different directories, then you have the added complexity of a more complicated structure.

I agree, it can be done. And I doubt many of us have data valuable enough to be worth anyone, be they government snoops or criminal elements, taking the time and effort to decrypt.

At least, not given the current publicly-available state of decryption technology and knowledge. There have, of course, been rumours that NSA capabilities on encryption have cracked some common encryption. Whether true or not, I've no idea, but it's certainly possible some breakthrough could hapoen next week, next year, or indeed, already has and we just don't know about it.

For me, it's a simple assessment of :-

- exactly WHAT is being stored,
- how unpleasant it could be if it got out,
- how risk-averse you are.

I have an extensive document-image system. What's in it? All sorts, but it includes birth, marriage and, where applicable, death certificates (genealogical research, for the purposes of) .... and not just for my family. It also includes utility bills, share certificates, bank statements, tax returns, medical records, insurance certificates, previous insurance claims details, business accounts records (again, not just mine), personal and business corresondence, and so on. And, company-confidential data held on behalf of clients.

In other words, a LOT more than my collection of cellphone snaps and ripped music/video, which is what I suspect many people's data consists of.

And a lot of my "data" is not going to be out of date, even in 10 years, because much of it is regularly updated, like bank records, etc. And it would be an identity thief's wet dream.

That's, in large part, why my attitude to cloud storage is "not now, not ever". I'm simply not prepared to risk all that on the cloud. So, if I have to have non-cloud storage that that, I might just as well keep everything out of the cloud, or I'm back into that issue I mentioned earlier of storing different bits in different places.

Also, for one of the main advantages of cloud storage, that being syncing between different devices, it largely defeats that if I locally encrypt, and if I rely on "apps" supplied by the cloud company, then I'm trusting exactly what an app that has access to unencrypted local files do, and who has access to keys, or even back doors. And frankly, I don't have that trust.

It is, of course, an individual judgement. Cloud is not for me and never will be, but it may well suit lots, even most, people.

Oh, and the other thing is, of course, if you rely on cloud storage as a 'backup', what liability do the cloud company have if, when you need it, your cloud storage is lost, corrupt, or even just unavailable due to a bad net connection? Certainly for 'free' services, when I've looked at T&C's, the answer is "none at all". Which makes it a poor choice as a backup.