Google has announced the end of unlimited storage for Google Workspace. Effective July 1st, 2024, UCI’s unlimited storage ended. OIT rolled out a new tiered model to manage storage and costs going forward.
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Google Storage Project Completed Successfully
On April 6, 2023, the Office of Information Technology announced a project to address Google’s end of unlimited storage for UCI’s Google Workspace service. We are pleased to inform you that the project is done, and our campus service will continue uninterrupted on July 1, 2024. Working in close partnership with school IT directors, the Research Cyberinfrastructure Center and Health Sciences IT, we established storage tiers on new and existing Google accounts and shared drives. While this transition was challenging, we especially want to thank you, our campus community – faculty, staff, students, retirees and alumni – who patiently worked with us through this transition period, demonstrating your Anteater pride through good stewardship of UCI resources.
Unlimited storage for Google Workspace ended on July 1, 2024
OIT wants to offer our campus community secure and cost-effective solutions for storing and preserving the important data that is the lifeblood of the University while maintaining the abilities of individuals and teams to continue to work productively in service of the University’s teaching, research, and public service missions.
If we had done nothing, the UCI Google Workspace services would have stopped working on July 1, 2024. OIT’s approach was to ensure that the service continues to work on July 1st, 2024. This means changes to the way we manage the services and the way you use them.
What Changed?
- Account Limits: Every existing UCI Google account was placed into a storage tier. There will be options for those who require, and qualify for, a higher level of storage.
- Shared Drive Limits: Existing shared drives were also be placed into predefined storage tiers.
- Account management: We deleted unlicensed accounts that are inactive for more than 180 days. Current faculty, students, and staff are licensed users and will not be subject to account deletion for inactivity.
What are the new storage tiers?
Legacy Tiers: Existing accounts and shared drives
- Faculty, staff, research teams, and administrative units were placed into a legacy tier (up to 1 TB) based on your Google Workspace usage in March 2023.
- Undergraduate and graduate students were placed in the default tier (20 GB) for licensed users.
- Not all accounts or drives will fit within their tier.
Legacy Tiers Details
- See the Storage Tiers tab for more information on tiers including Legacy tiers.
- See the Alternative Solutions tab for information on other solutions if you exceed your tier.
- Storage tiers were rolled out in phases throughout 2023, giving each group ample time to plan accordingly for the changes after being notified.
Default Tiers: New accounts
As of 5/12/2023, all new Google Workspace accounts will have the following storage limits.
| Tier | Storage Limit | Available To |
|---|---|---|
| Default Tier for Licensed Users | 20 GB | Registered students, faculty, staff, guests, and groups |
| Default Tier for Unlicensed Users | 5 GB | Alumni, retirees, and emeriti |
| Default Tier for Shared Drives | 5 GB | Anyone, with a limit of one shared drive per account |
Read the guidelines below based on your affiliation at UCI.
Student
- As a registered student, your account is licensed and will have a storage limit of 20 GB.
- Upon graduation, your account will no longer be licensed and will move to the 5 GB tier.
- Your existing shared drive(s) will have a storage limit of 5 GB.
Due to the proliferation of shared drives, we reserve the right to prune excessive shared drive usage. We will not do that without several notification attempts.
If you have an existing account and are using more than 20 GB of space, or if you own one or more shared drives, we recommend:
- Consider moving your classroom and extracurricular assignments to Microsoft 365.
- Please move any personal data (e.g., movies, photos, music, etc.) to a personal Google account.
Principal Investigator/Research Faculty
- As a principal investigator or research faculty, your account is licensed. The default storage limit for your account is 20 GB.
- If you leave the university, your account will no longer be licensed and will move to the 5 GB tier.
- New PI/Research Faculty: If you are new to the university on or after March 2023, you will have a storage limit of 20 GB. We recommend you do NOT build a research infrastructure on Google Workspace. Please review the alternative solutions available to you in the Alternatives tab above.
- Existing PI/Research Faculty: If you are an existing account holder, please see “What if I have an existing account?” in the FAQ below for more information.
If your account or shared drive(s) exceed their storage limit, we recommend:
- Consider alternative solutions available to you, especially for data backups and collaboration
- Budget for additional storage in your grant to request and pay for a higher storage limit
Faculty or Staff
- As faculty or staff, your account is licensed and will have a storage limit of 20 GB.
- If you leave the university, your account will no longer be licensed and will move to the 5 GB tier.
- Existing Faculty or Staff: If you are an existing account holder, please see “What if I have an existing account?” in the FAQ below for more information.
If your account or shared drive(s) exceed their storage limit, we recommend:
- Consider alternative solutions available to you
- Budget for additional storage
Group account owner
- As a group account owner, your group account will have a storage limit of 20 GB.
- If you leave the university, you will need to transfer ownership to another account.
- Existing account holder: If you are an existing account holder, please see “What if I have an existing account?” in the FAQ below for more information.
If your account or shared drive(s) exceed their storage limit, we recommend:
- Consider alternative solutions available to you
- Budget for additional storage
Shared drive owner
Shared drive creation is managed centrally and defaults to a 5GB tier. You can request a new Shared Google Drive through a service request form. Storage tiers higher than 5 GB can be purchased by faculty, staff, research teams, and administrative units. If you need more than the default storage tier, you will need to provide a KFS recharge number. If you leave the university, you will need to transfer ownership to another account holder or the shared drive will be deleted.
If you are an existing shared drive owner, please see “What if I have an existing shared drive?” in the FAQ below for more information.
If your shared drive(s) exceed their storage limit, we recommend:
- Consider alternative solutions available to you
- Budget for additional storage
Guest Account & Sponsor
- As a sponsored guest account you will have a storage limit of 20 GB.
- As a guest account sponsor, if you leave the university, you will need to transfer the sponsorship to another account. If you do not, the guest account may be assigned to the 5 GB tier of storage.
If you are an existing guest account holder, please see “What if I have an existing account?” in the FAQ below for more information.
If your account or shared drive(s) exceed their storage limit, we recommend you consider alternative solutions available to you.
Retirees, Alumni, Emeriti
- As a retiree, emeritus, or alumnus, you will have a storage limit of 5 GB.
- Keep your account active: As long as you log into your account every 180 days, you will retain your account. If you do not log in for 181 days, Google yanks your storage allocation away and puts us in the position of deleting your account.
- If you have existing shared drives, they will be deleted. Please consider other no-cost alternatives available to you.
Storage Limit Tiers
A storage limit is the maximum amount of storage a single account or shared drive can store. Because of the way Google imposes storage limits, we are unable to customize limits on a per-account basis, so we have organized the limits into reasonable slices (“tiers”). The tiers are organized according to Google licenses (or multiples thereof).
Legacy Tiers
- Faculty, staff, research teams, and administrative units will be placed into a legacy tier (up to 1 TB) based on your Google Workspace usage in March 2023. See “What if I have an existing UCI Google account?” in the FAQ below for more details.
- Undergraduate and graduate students will be placed in the default tier of 20GB.
| Tier | Storage Limit | Available To |
|---|---|---|
| Small | 20 GB | The default tier for all licensed users: registered students, faculty, staff, guests, groups |
| Medium | 100 GB | Faculty, staff, research teams, administrative units |
| Large | 1 TB | Faculty, staff, research teams, administrative units |
| Custom | 10 TB+ | Faculty, research teams, administrative units |
| Free | 5 GB | The default tier for everyone else including alumni, retirees, and emeriti |
Legacy Shared Drives
We will legacy in existing, active shared drives with storage limits similar to how we are addressing individual accounts (e.g., a shared drive using 85 GB will be placed in the Medium storage tier, a shared drive using 25 TB of storage will be placed in the 1 TB tier).
Default Tiers
New accounts will go into the default tiers. The default tiers went into effect on 5/12/2023.
| Tier | Storage Limit | Available To |
|---|---|---|
| Default Tier for Licensed Users | 20 GB | Registered students, faculty, staff, guests, and groups |
| Default Tier for Unlicensed Users | 5 GB | Alumni, retirees, and emeriti |
| Default Tier for Shared Drives | 5 GB | Anyone, with a limit of one shared drive per account |
Additional Storage Pricing
OIT has developed a cost recovery process for faculty, staff, research teams, and administrative units to purchase their way into a higher tier for accounts, shared drives, or both. Undergraduate, graduate students, alumni, retirees, and guestsare not eligible for additional storage.
Storage Pricing
| Storage in TB | Annual Cost | Rate Type |
|---|---|---|
| 1 TB | $144 | Recharge |
| 10 TB | $1,440 | Recharge |
| 20 TB | $2,880 | Recharge |
| 30 TB | $3,420 | Recharge |
| 40 TB | $5,760 | Recharge |
| 50 TB | $7,200 | Recharge |
| 60 TB | $8,640 | Recharge |
| 70 TB | $10,080 | Recharge |
| 80 TB | $11,520 | Recharge |
| 90 TB | $12,960 | Recharge |
| 100 TB | $14,400 | Recharge |
Depending on what you are trying to do, UCI has several alternatives available today (and a couple in development) at no or low cost to you. “Zero-cost services” are centrally funded, they do not rely on a “free, unlimited” model from the vendor.
| I Need To | Solution(s) Available | Storage Available | Cost to You |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collaborate with others | Microsoft 365
| • 100 GB - 1 TB for employees* | $0 |
| Publish large datasets | Data Dryad | Up to 300 GB per dataset | $0 |
| Store data at scale | AWS 2.0 Cloud | • Up to AWS limits • UCI receives 45% off list prices for S3, 17% off all other pricing | AWS prices less discount |
| Campus Research Storage Pool | Multi-TB file storage |
| |
| Back up my laptop or desktop | CrashPlan | Up to 1 TB | $0 |
| Back up my lab storage | Coming soon! To get on interest list, please email hpc-support@uci.edu | Effectively unlimited, 90 day backup retention | $0 |
| Purchase a higher tier of storage through OIT | See instructions to purchase. Available only for faculty and career staff. | • 1 TB tier • 10 TB tier • Multiples of 10 TB | • $144 / year / TB for 1TB • 1,440 / year / TB for each multiple of 10 TB |
*Microsoft reserves the right to change its default storage offering according to the terms of its systemwide contract.
IMPORTANT: The migration from Google to SharePoint/OneDrive does not delete your Google data. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are below your tier’s stated limits.
What are my migration options?
The following options are available to you:
- Self-service migration – OIT has a process to export your data from Google Drive using Google Takeout and import it using the OneDrive sync client. Below are some video tutorials on how to migration data from popular applications:
- Facilitated migration (available to faculty and staff only) – this option utilizes Microsoft Migration Manager. Please send an email to oit@uci.edu with the subject line “Google Drive Migration” and provide your UCINetID. Alternatively, you can call (949) 824-2222. Any assisted migration requests after 2:00 PM will be processed by the migration team the next business day.
What is Microsoft Migration Manager?
Microsoft Migration Manager is a tool that enables the migration of documents to Microsoft 365 (SharePoint or to OneDrive) from Google Workspace. Access to this tool is limited to UCI’s Google and Microsoft system administrators.
What isn’t migrated from Google Drive?
Google doesn’t allow Microsoft Migration Manager to export the following from Drive:
- Google Drawings
- Google Forms
- Google Sites
- Google Maps
Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets are converted
Google’s proprietary formats aren’t compatible with anything other than a Google Workspace Drive. When migrating from Google Workspace, Microsoft Migration Manager converts to the Microsoft Office format from Google’s format.
| Google Format | Office Format |
| .gsheet | .xlsx |
| .gdoc | .docx |
| .gslide | .pptx |
How long does a facilitated migration take?
The project team has observed data transfer rates of 20 GB per hour based on our facilitated migration tests.
High-level timeline for the Google Workspace changes
| Dates | Deliverables | Status |
|---|---|---|
| February 2023 | Develop communication plans & channels, draft storage policy | |
| March 2023 | Start communicating storage changes to stakeholders via established forums (CORCL, ASM, etc.) | |
| May 2023 | • Establish “hard” limits for new accounts • Stop new accounts from creating shared drives | |
| June 2023 | • Establish “soft” limits for existing accounts • Send out notifications to accounts over storage limits | |
| July 2023 | • Establish hard limits on existing accounts using 50% or less of their storage • Start Digital Hygiene campaign to encourage good data practice • Notify shared drive managers that shared drives without a UCI account named as manager will be deleted | |
| August 2023 | • Establish hard limits on existing accounts using 75% or less of their storage | |
| September 2023 | • Establish hard limits on existing accounts using 90% or less of storage • Communicate process for eligible account holders to purchase their way into a higher storage tier | |
| October 2023 | • Communicate to undergraduate students that hard limits are coming Nov 1st • Communicate to graduate students that hard limits are coming Nov & Dec • Communicate to alumni and retirees that hard limits are coming in Dec • Communicate to contingent workers and guests that hard limits are coming in Dec • Communicate to shared drive owners using less than 100% of their storage tier that hard limits are coming in Nov • Communicate to non-UCI owned shared drives that they will be deleted in Dec • Establish hard limits on shared drives using 80% or less of storage | |
| November 2023 | • Establish hard limits on all undergraduate student accounts (11/1) • Establish hard limits on all graduate students accounts using less than 100% of their storage tier (11/15) • Establish hard limits on shared drives using less than 100% of their storage tier (11/15) • Communicate to all remaining account holders and shared drive owners that hard limits will be progressively implemented starting in Dec and ending by Feb 2024 | |
| December 2023 | • Establish hard limits on alumni, retirees, contingent workers and guests (12/8) • Establish hard limits on all graduate student accounts using 100% or more of their storage tier (12/18) • Establish hard limits on faculty, staff, research & group accounts using 100% or less of their tier (12/18) • Delete shared drives not owned by a UCI account (12/1) | |
| January 2024 | • Progressively implement storage limits on remaining accounts and shared drives | |
| February 2024 | • Progressively establish hard limits on remaining staff, faculty, research and group accounts • Establish hard limits on all remaining shared drives • Notify account holders and shared drive owners over their limits that their data will be deleted in 60 days if they do not address their overage | |
| March 2024 | • Notify account holders and shared drive owners over their limits that their data will be deleted in 30 days if they do not address their overage | |
| April 2024 | • All accounts and shared drives receive hard limits (4/14/24) • Start deleting accounts and shared drives over their limits | |
| July 1, 2024 | • Google Workspace seizes up if we do not use less storage than what we have allocated |
