This week, Amazon revealed that it will no longer offer an unlimited storage plan in its Amazon Drive consumer service. Instead, the firm will price cloud storage at $60 per 1 TB.
Amazon first announced unlimited cloud storage for individuals back in early 2015. At the time, I noted how this service compared to OneDrive, Google Drive, Apple iCloud, and Dropbox, and determined that Microsoft’s offering was still superior. But Amazon was offering what it called “infinite” storage for photos, videos, files, documents, movies, and music for just $60 per year. (If you wanted just infinite photo storage, the cost was $12 per year.)
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No more.
Now, Amazon is offering storage plans of 100 GB ($20 per year) and 1 TB ($60 per year), and anyone who wants additional storage can pay another $60 per 1 TB. Additionally, all Amazon customers get 5 GB of free storage. And if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you get unlimited photo storage. (Which makes this service a good option for those who wisely choose to backup their phone-based photos to multiple places.)
The change is effective today, Amazon says, and customers who are already paying for unlimited storage will retain that perk until their current subscription expires. At that time, they will be switched to a 1 TB plan at $60 unless auto-renew is disabled.
If you are an Amazon Drive user, you should visit your Manage Storage page to see how much storage you’re currently using. (I was surprised to see that I am using over 38 GB of storage, mostly for music.) You can change plans now, turn-off auto-renew, or download your content (with the Amazon Drive desktop app for Windows).
skane2600
<p>Offering less for the same price is never a winning strategy. Better to have never offered unlimited than to take it away IMO.</p>
Dryloch
<p>The jokes on them mine does not expire until November 28th! Just in time for some 10TB Black Friday hard drive sales for the Unraid Server! SRL look into Unraid as it has been rock solid for me. I like that it allows several drives to be backed up using either a single parity drive or now two if you want to be extra safe.</p>