Microsoft to double OneDrive free space, slash extra storage prices up to 73%
Will also bump Office 365 Home, Personal subscribers’ allotment to 1TB next month
Microsoft today announced it would double OneDrive’s free storage space for consumers to 15GB from its previous allowance of 7GB.
The expansion of the free tier, and other changes to OneDrive, will take place in July.
Microsoft’s moves come as all the major players are scrambling to offer customers more for less. Earlier this month, Apple said it would cut prices by up to 70% for paid iCloud plans. And last week Amazon said that users of its Fire phone would have an unlimited amount of storage for photos taken with the device’s camera.
Along with the doubling of the free allotment, Microsoft also said that it would hand subscribers of Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal — the two consumer-grade rent-not-own plans — 1TB (terabyte) per user, up from a comparatively paltry amount of just 27GB. Students who have subscribed to Office 365 University, an $80 four-year program, also will receive 1TB free of charge.
The bump to 1TB per user on the consumer side matched the move Microsoft made in April on Office 365 commercial accounts.