University Chops Students' Microsoft 365 Storage To 20GB

Microsoft's decision to cut the storage in its Microsoft 365 Education line is having some real-world consequences, with a Canadian university imposing draconian measures partly in response to the restrictions.

Photo of McGill University front pathway with lots of students on sunny fall autumn day - Click to enlarge

McGill University published a notification earlier this week warning students that a 20GB limit would be foisted upon their OneDrive storage space, in addition to 20GB of Outlook email storage.

Students have until May 31, 2024, to get their storage below the 20GB mark or find themselves unable to store any new files.

Microsoft announced changes to storage services for Microsoft 365 Education users in 2023 and stated that all school tenants would receive 100TB of free pooled storage across OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange. It said that additional pooled storage could be purchased per paid user.

"IT Admins have the flexibility to set a lower limit for A1 users."

As for the why, Microsoft said – somewhat bizarrely – its mission was to "Empower education through innovation." We suppose that cutting the storage available to academics is certainly innovative.

However, it is the two other justifications for the change onto which McGill has latched.

First is security – lots of confidential data could lurk in student storage spaces, forgotten about until discovered by a ne'er-do-well. Second, is the environmental impact of all that cloud storage. Microsoft's hand-wringing over the matter is will documented. In this instance it said:

"Stored files that are no longer in use, have an impact on our carbon footprint with over half of all data stored by organizations not serving a useful purpose."

It went on to cite data from the World Economic Forum. "Storage of this 'dark' data takes up space on servers and results in increased electricity consumption, generating 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 alone."

Of the potentially unused files, McGill said this week: "They require a lot of electrical energy for the billions of files to be kept available 24/7 as well as ensuring their security. This electrical energy generates more and more excess heat, and we need to curb this dangerous trend."

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Reg readers might point out that the sheer amount of compute and storage required to keep Microsoft's AI obsession on track, or the landfills which will be filled with perfectly good PC hardware once Windows 10 goes end-of-life, should both be remembered when considering Microsoft's environmental track record.

The Register asked McGill why it had decided to go beyond Microsoft's restrictions and will update should the University respond.

In the meantime, affected users have taken to social media to express their displeasure at the news. One noted that "the implications for research integrity are massive" thanks to retention requirements for research data that can't simply be stashed on a personal drive due, in part, to the aforementioned security risks. ®