The End of Unlimited Storage

Well. This is it. Here we are. You and your school district have created hundreds of thousands of files and years of work in Google Drive and suddenly you’ve reached the end of unlimited storage in Google Drive. Over the last few years Google Drive has been one of your best tools as your district moved to the cloud, collaborated in real-time anywhere and on any device, endured cybersecurity threats, and supported remote learning through a pandemic. It includes everything from assignments and projects to employee evaluations and contracts. Now, after all of that work, unlimited storage in Google Workspace is going away.

Starting this summer, all Google Workspace for Education domains will have a finite amount of pooled storage for their entire domain. Pooled storage is storage used by all of your users (both active and suspended users) for everything in their accounts, including – but not limited to – files from Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.

School districts with less than 20,000 enrolled students will be capped at 100 TBs of pooled storage. Districts get additional storage if they have premium Google Workspace licenses. Google Workspace for Education Plus licenses include an additional 20 GBs of storage for each license, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade comes with 100 GBs of additional storage for each upgrade.

So, for example, if a district of 12,000 users purchased 300 licenses and Teaching and Learning Upgrades they would have 130 TBs of pooled storage (100 TBs of Base Storage and 300 Teaching and Learning Upgrades at 100 GBs each). If that same district with 12,000 users had Google Workspace for Education Plus licenses they would have 340 TBs of storage (100 TBs of Base Storage and 12,000 licenses with 20 GBs each).

Storage Changes Timeline

February 2021 – Google Announces Storage Changes in Google Workspace

Last year Google announced the upcoming storage changes in Google Workspace and encouraged districts to evaluate their storage needs and consider purchasing premium licenses to add to their limit.

June 1, 2021 – High-quality Photos Begin Counting Toward Storage Limit

Photos and videos backed up in High quality (now named Storage saver) or Express quality after June 1, 2021, begin counting in your storage limits Any photos or videos backed up in High quality or Express quality before June 1, 2021, will not count toward your Google Account storage.

May 1, 2022 – Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, and Jamboard now Count Toward Storage Limit

All Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms and Jamboard files created or modified after May 1 will now count toward the storage limit. This will be roughly 100 MB per user per month of additional storage.

If you’re looking at the storage your district currently uses, you may assume you’re in a good position. This could change after May 1. Imagine a district of 15,000  using 60 TBs of pooled storage and currently growing at 16 TBs each year. On first glance, it appears they will not have any issues managing storage. When Google begins counting new documents created in Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, and Jamboard in May this will result in 18 TBs of documents in the next year that were not previously counted toward their storage limit. With these changes, this district could forecast usage of 94 TBs a year from now, pushing the organization up against the 100 TB limit.

July 1, 2022 – The End of Unlimited Storage

The day everything changes. July 1 is the end of unlimited storage in Google Workspace, and all school districts will have a capped amount of pooled storage. If districts are over their pooled storage limit, the organization’s Super Administrators will receive emails and notifications from Google warning them that they are out of compliance. If the warnings are ignored, Google may prevent you from creating or uploading new content until your district is under the limit and back in compliance. 

How do I get more storage?

The only way to get additional storage is to purchase either Google Workspace for Education Plus licenses or the Teaching and Learning Upgrades for your district. 

How can Kincaid IT Help me with My Storage?

• Google Workspace for Education Plus licenses and the Teaching and Learning Upgrades
  The Google Workspace for Education Plus licenses and the Teaching and Learning Upgrades offer additional storage as well as premium tools for security, teaching and learning, and video conferencing.
  Want to learn more about premium licenses or request a quote? Contact Us! We’d love to help.
• Take Control of Your Storage with Kincaid IT’s KIT Central Storage+
  KIT Central Storage+ allows you to manage your organization’s storage needs with precision and flexibility. Simple dashboards give you a quick overview of storage usage for your entire domain and on a per-user basis. This allows you to quickly identify what files are taking up the most room in your domain and how to optimize for this usage. Additionally, KIT Central Storage+ helps you understand what unused files in your domain can be moved into Google Cloud Storage Buckets to free up space. These insights will make a significant difference in managing your organization’s storage needs.
• Check out a free webinar
  Yikes! The End of Unlimited Storage!
  Learn about Google Workspace for Education domain storage changes and the impact it will have on your domain. Utilize tools for more insight into what is being stored in your Google environment to reduce overall storage.