Google has announced the end of unlimited storage for Google Workspace. Effective July 1st, 2024, UCI’s unlimited storage will end. OIT will be rolling out a new tiered model to manage storage and costs going forward.
Your data is important. Our objective with this transition is to offer our campus community secure and cost-effective solutions for storing and preserving your data, all while maintaining your ability to work productively in service of the University’s teaching, research, and public service missions.
Currently, about 90% of campus is operating within their future data allowance. This strategy will address the remaining 10% while building a model for the future. As of March 2023, UCI is using 6 PB of storage, growing about 20% year over year. This is 5 PB over our limit. We need to reduce our storage level or the entire service–including Gmail–will stop working.
What Will Change?
- Account Limits: Every Google account will be placed into a storage tier. There will be options for those who require and qualify for a higher level of storage.
- Shared Drive Limits: Existing shared drives will also be placed into predefined storage tiers. The ability to create new shared drives will be available upon request if certain conditions are met.
- Account management: We will delete unlicensed accounts that are inactive for more than 180 days. Faculty, students, and staff are licensed users and will not be subject to account deletion.
What’s my new storage tier?
Existing accounts and shared drives:
- You will be legacied into a tier depending on your current storage level.
- Not all accounts or drives will fit within their tier. Tiers, and solutions available if you exceed them, can be found on the project page.
New accounts:
- 20 GB for registered students, staff, faculty, groups, guests
- 5 GB for all other accounts (e.g., alumni, retirees)
- 5 GB for shared drives (tiers still under construction)
Storage tiers will be rolled out in phases throughout 2023, giving each group ample time to plan accordingly for the changes after being notified. Additional information regarding this project, FAQs, suggestions for freeing up storage and more can be found on the project page.
This will have a significant impact on the way we interact with our patrons, donors, and how we communicate as a department. It was painful enough to convince our department to begin using Google Drive a couple of years ago and we’d only just gotten into the swing of using it. Now you want us to move to Microsoft Teams (which no one wants to use because it is clunky). Will OIT want the campus to use yet another platform in the near future and force us down this path of migration all over again?
Elvia, thank you for your feedback. OIT is frustrated with Google’s end of unlimited storage as well. While we have done what we can to minimize the fallout to the broader campus community, Google’s change is big enough that for about 10% of our Google account holders the effects can’t be completely smoothed over. Regretfully, you appear to be one of those in the 10%. We have recommended several campus-approved alternatives that we have available today to address your needs, which include Microsoft’s OneDrive, Sharepoint (and Teams, which is built on top of Sharepoint). They can be found on the Google Workspace Storage Changes project page under the Alternatives tab.
Your larger question of whether we will move again in the near future would be driven by external forces: technology partners, platforms and trends. OIT is committed to the ongoing success of the university’s teaching & learning, research and public service missions. When something big changes like this, we try to minimize the disruption of existing services where we are able and provide as long a runway as we can for those who do feel the impact. At this time we do not forecast any disruptions to the alternatives we’ve provided.
I second Elvia’s concerns and would like answers to her questions.
Thank you for the helpful response Henry! Didn’t see your response yesterday, but that’s informative. 🙂