Google is Killing Unlimited Drive Storage for Non-Enterprise Users

If you’re one of the Google Drive users who is taking advantage of unlimited storage for $12 per month on G Suite, beware. Workspace is replacing G Suite and offers more features for those who do, but you might not want to switch: unlimited storage on Workspace will cost you at least $20 a month.

Currently G Suite business subscribers (which do not need to be actual businesses, but any individuals looking for greater storage capacity) can access unlimited storage on Drive for just $12 a month. For photographers with considerable backlogs of photos, this was a relatively inexpensive cloud storage backup solution. Google states in its plans that groups using this particular plan with four or fewer members are supposed to be only eligible for 1 TB of storage each, but in testing by Android Police and others have shown that Google has never enforced that limit.

Unfortunately, this appears to be changing with the transition to Workplace. According to the company’s list of plans, which you can view here, there is a limit of 2 TB for individual Business Standard users and 5 TB per person on its new Business Plus plan. To get more, you will have to go to the Enterprise level which Google says requires you to work directly with a Google sales representative (this appears to actually be the case), but Google does promise they can offer as much storage “as you need” in this category. That doesn’t explicitly say unlimited, but should realistically operate as such for now.

Pricing in that Enterprise level will cost you $20 per month ($30 per month on Enterprise Plus), nearly double the previous price for the same amount of storage. For now, G Suite customers will be able to stick with their current plans if they do not switch to Workplace, but Google is intending to transition all users over to the new system eventually.

A Google spokesperson commented on the situation to Android Police:

A relatively small number of organizations in a few specific industries actually realize the full benefit of unlimited storage. With the new editions, we’re providing more value with features that are useful to more customers, like Meet recordings in the new Business Standard edition, while maintaining pricing and plentiful storage. And with the Enterprise editions, available to customers of all sizes, more storage can be requested if needed.

It seems that if you rely on Google for storage, you should start budgeting for a price hike in the near future as well as prepare for a transition to Workplace.