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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

#71

Post by _cenw »

Terretta wrote: 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…

Not every instance of Propaganda or Mass Surveilance warrants a 1984 reference. Very few in relation to how often it is invoked.

Newspeak is very specifically about the idea of making some ideas impossible to express. You seem to be calling Microsoft's bullshit pretty well.

(Simlarly, panopticism is about supressing expression of ideas though the threat of surveilance and subsequent repression, and going by how much political discourse has eroded, our version of surveilance capitalism doesn't seem to limit anyone from voicing their ideas, no matter how far it strays from prior social expectations of decency)

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#72

Post by bjornsing »

imgabe wrote: post #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.

Storage or ALL processing? SSDs typically need very little power to just store data. They need some power to read and write. But the lion’s share of energy use for “digitization” is compute in various forms.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#74

Post by robin_reala »

imgabe wrote: post #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.…

I believe that emissions figure includes the power consumed during the manufacturing and shipping of the storage devices too.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#75

Post by azalemeth »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #23
Almondsetat wrote: post #2

Interesting, I personally use my institutional OneDrive sparingly, but I would love to see my professors and IT staff scramble to switch from 1TB of cloud storage to 20GB. I have always opposed selling everything to MS and nobody has ever cared to offer alternatives (only Moodle and it's badly configured lol)

Professors don't make those decisions, I'm a professor at a university that uses the full MS suite and I hate it with all my heart.

Ditto. I complain about it constantly and get patronisingly managed. Everyone I know hates it. Some departments -- like physics -- manage "around" it quite well. Others, with less technological users, have flat-out stated that "it is the way it is" and, well, get on with it.

Computers were originally built to serve the needs of academics. Now academics are told to serve the needs of (American) computers.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#76

Post by lotsofpulp »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #28

Just a philosophical question, that I think is on topic, I wonder how many cloud services will have to give people unpleasant experiences for those same people to stop going all in on cloud services, especially in the era of we reserve the right to change the terms and conditions without notice at our discretion At this point I’m not even mad with Microsoft

As long as homes don’t have high quality symmetric ipv6 fiber connections not hidden behind CGNAT, the cloud is here to stay.

Ideally, you would be able to buy a ready to go NAS and set up your own cloud at home in a few easy steps.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#77

Post by atahanacar »

laborcontract wrote: post #14
tgma wrote: post #10

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

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…

I think the real e-waste is buying a new phone so often that your house is flooded with old chargers.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#78

Post by ChatGTP »

formerly_proven wrote: post #56
crimbles wrote: post #5

Is that the same Microsoft which is throwing money into running environmentally destructive AI workloads as their key business driver?

Same Microsoft that's forcing roughly 250 million perfectly fine PCs to be replaced due to new Windows 11 "requirements" and Windows 10 EOL.

Love these two comments, nail on the head there.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#79

Post by znpy »

Are they going to scale down the price accordingly?

Isn't this fraud? The customers (institutions or others) had agreed on a certain amount of storage space for a certain price, but now Microsoft is changing the cards on the table.

The "environmental reasons" smells like bs.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#80

Post by pjmlp »

elashri wrote: 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…

I guess there are more generous nowadays than they used to be, I surely didn't had such storage access during early 2000's.
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