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Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

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Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#41
post #3

not sure why you'd go for the cloud for this, that seems misguided altogether. To expand on this: A few TB diskspace are dirt cheap.

just use rsync?

not every academic knows how to use a terminal, or computers more broadly.

a Seafile seems much more appropriate.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#42
post #27
post #9

It sounds like it's McGill asking "And this is why we [McGill] are asking you to reduce the data stored in your OneDrive and in your Outlook email." https://www.mcgill.ca/polling/channels/news/important-onedri... But, amazingly, Microsoft did argue this nonsense: 1. security risk of storing files 2. environmental impact 3. ability for Microsoft to innovate more by deleting your stuff https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/e…

(Edit: Above post originally read only “Microsoft did no such thing” before edit. Evidently updated their post after actually reading the thread). Weird, you should tell Microsoft this, because I don’t know what it was before but the link in that thread says they are: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft... Limiting to 100TB pooled and $30/TB/month for extra storage. One of the reasons explici…

It's honestly confusing but to be fair to Microsoft:

> all institutions’ tenants will receive 100TB of free pooled storage across OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange, with an additional 50GB or 100GB of pooled storage per paid user for A3 and A5 subscriptions, respectively

This is a bad change, period (plus the justification given is basically stepping on a gaping wound), but there are storage guarantees much greater than what McGill's are doing.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#43
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos. The e-waste related to including chargers in the box is a real thing. That change also allowed them to halve the size of the boxes, effectively doubling the shipping yield. On a billion-device level that's a non-trivial change. And yes, it's good for their bottom line. And yes, it effectively increased the pri…

> Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos. If only any USB-C cable was compatible with iPhone or Pixel it would be fine, but I have 4 USB-C cables that don't work with them.

That's a valid criticism. The only thing that usb-c got right as a standard was the symmetrical shape.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#44
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos. If only any USB-C cable was compatible with iPhone or Pixel it would be fine, but I have 4 USB-C cables that don't work with them.

That's a valid criticism. The only thing that usb-c got right as a standard was the symmetrical shape.

Just like mobile phones had in '90s.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#45
post #13

Microsoft is following Google decision two years ago to stop their more generous (than MS) storage plan for educational institutions. A lot of the people who had MS offering instead of google were saying that they are safe with their choice. 1TB is much more reasonable than "unlimited" and Microsoft would keep it. Now here we are. Happy to be part of CERN so I don't have to worry about my institution storage situatio…

CERN is one of the few institutions in the world to keep using Hadoop clusters, I wonder how it feels like!

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos. The e-waste related to including chargers in the box is a real thing. That change also allowed them to halve the size of the boxes, effectively doubling the shipping yield. On a billion-device level that's a non-trivial change. And yes, it's good for their bottom line. And yes, it effectively increased the pri…

> Sucks for me, yes. So what? Keep living with attitude like that, eventually you’ll realize.

Honestly I've lived in countries (Korea) that have recycling programs that are a kafkaesque nightmare where you literally have to peel the plastic off a tissue box to recycle both the plastic and the paper, and if you don't, you have neighbors who dig through your trash to snitch on you, pushing a fat fine down your throat. That, I cannot tolerate.

I'm a big fan of tackling the low hanging fruit of recycling and waste reduction, and not including a charger is definitely up there.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#47
On the Microsoft page[1] about this change they say

> Storage of this “dark” data takes up space on servers and results in increased electricity consumption, generating 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 alone.

Where "dark" data is data that is unused. However they link to this World Economic Forum Page [2] which says

> In 2020, digitisation was purported to generate 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

So the 4% figure is not the storage of only dark data, but the storage of ALL data. The WEF page says that half of all data is unused, but how much of the energy usage is due to the unused data? I would think the bulk of the energy would be used when the data is accessed, and data sitting on a drive not being accessed isn't really using any energy.

This is really misleading.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft...

[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/dark-data-is-killing-...

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#48
post #10

Apple cut the phone charger for environmental reasons too. It always has to be the end user who sacrifices for the environment.

Sacrifices? Who wanted a different charger that only works on their phone?

I like having one connector for everything.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#50
post #27
post #9

It sounds like it's McGill asking "And this is why we [McGill] are asking you to reduce the data stored in your OneDrive and in your Outlook email." https://www.mcgill.ca/polling/channels/news/important-onedri... But, amazingly, Microsoft did argue this nonsense: 1. security risk of storing files 2. environmental impact 3. ability for Microsoft to innovate more by deleting your stuff https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/e…

(Edit: Above post originally read only “Microsoft did no such thing” before edit. Evidently updated their post after actually reading the thread). Weird, you should tell Microsoft this, because I don’t know what it was before but the link in that thread says they are: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft... Limiting to 100TB pooled and $30/TB/month for extra storage. One of the reasons explici…

"Microsoft did no such thing" was about this post's headline, that Microsoft limited the students' storage. It did not. I changed the wording because "no such" is too strong since they did adjust pricing model 'plans', and they did give some (stupid) talking points McGill copy-pasted.

Not sure what 'thread' you mean. If you mean Twitter, you are correct, I did not 'actually read the [Twitter] thread', I went to source at McGill and linked that here, then further linked to Microsoft policy update after using Kagi to find the Microsoft propoganda regurgitated by McGill:

https://kagi.com/search?q=Microsoft%20is%20introducing%20cha....

To be clear, Microsoft is not making McGill limit student storage:

"Every institution’s tenant has a 100TB base storage capacity. Microsoft 365 and Office 365 A3 and A5 paid user licenses add 50GB or 100GB respectively to the pool of storage. In addition, institutions can purchase additional pooled storage in 10TB increments for $300 estimated retail USD monthly to add to the tenant pool. To find your capacity, use this calculation: 100TB + (#A3 paid users x 50GB) + (#A5 paid users x 100 GB) + (additional storage purchased) = capacity/limit."

McGill is making a choice, there is a reasonable price to maintain whatever pool McGill want, and Microsoft's argument for matching Google academic threshold drop was posted 6 months ago, no scramble needed.

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