Storage Changes

The end of unlimited cloud storage is here. Along with many other services, Google has already moved to a paid model for their services and will begin charging UC Berkeley for our stored content in 2024 if we do not reduce our storage consumption. We currently store 11.2 PB of data across all Google services, and our new storage cap, without significant additional fees, is 2.6 PB. We will be making several changes to the service beginning in January of 2023, however, customers will not experience any immediate impact. Please see the project plan and FAQ for more details about the plan and how you may be affected.

Town Halls

Please join us for monthly virtual town halls (third Wednesday of every month from 1-2pm) for discussing these changes.

View instructions for joining our upcoming Town Halls.

Project updates mailing list

Any current member of the UC Berkeley community can keep up to date with the Storage Service Changes project by subscribing to our mailing list. To subscribe:

Google Resources and FAQ

Presentations and Updates

Town Hall recordings, public Zoom chat, and slide decks can be found in this Drive folder (UC Berkeley login required).

Frequently Asked Questions

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How do I see my current storage usage in Google and Box?

Google

To see the breakdown of usage in your Google account, go to https://drive.google.com/settings/storage

To see all the files in your Google MyDrive sorted by usage, go to https://drive.google.com/drive/quota

Box

To see the usage in your Box account, go to https://berkeley.app.box.com/account, then scroll down to "Account Details" and look for "Storage Used"...

How is Berkeley responding?

These changes from Google overlap with the similar changes Box announced last year, so we are taking a bigger picture look at the overall file storage and collaboration strategy for the entire campus. Our primary goal is to find the most 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 mission.

How will we make decisions about these services?

Google and Box are both part of the campus’ Productivity Suite offering; any changes will be a part of our ongoing discussions with the campus about the governance and funding of Productivity Suite.

What do I need to do now?

Do

Clean up: Delete any files, folders or email that you are confident you no longer need from Google and Box.

Empty your Box and Google Trash: Deleted files in Google and Box are moved to the trash in Google and Box

Just like on your computer, you need to empty trash in order for the...

Why are these services changing?

There is a larger industry trend towards eliminating “unlimited” offerings for cloud-based services. This has its roots in the fact that, unlike 5-10 years ago, storage costs are no longer rapidly decreasing. In fact, they have leveled off or increased in recent years.

Why is the Berkeley Google service changing?

Google is eliminating the free and unlimited storage offering that they have provided to the K-12 and higher education community along with their rebranding from Google G Suite for Education to Google Workspace Education. We currently store 11.2 PB of data in our entire Google Workspace enterprise environment, and we will need to reduce our storage to below 2.6 PB or the university will be charged significant fees. We will have until...