Dropbox Advanced no longer has unlimited storage. Due to frequent abuses, the cloud storage specialist is forced to set limits on the maximum capacity.

Dropbox is giving up its unlimited storage formula. To date, Dropbox Advanced has allowed businesses to use as much storage space as they need. You can take that literally: Dropbox offered no limit. The company recognized that some companies would consume (much) more storage than others, but had to shoulder the brunt. Finally, the offer was very attractive: no matter what your company needs, we provide the necessary storage space for a fixed amount per month.

abuse

Dropbox had intended the offer exclusively for companies, but found increasing abuse. For example, individuals have teamed up to store mountains of private data with Dropbox, and individuals have abused the offering to mine the Chia cryptocurrency (which uses storage instead of processing power). Some have even resold Dropbox storage to third parties on their own account.

Competing colleagues faced the same problem, according to Dropbox. When they took action, Dropbox saw a significant spike in abuse. As a result, the company is now forced to limit its available storage.

New frontiers

Starting today, Dropbox Advanced has a storage limit of 15TB for three users, which is the minimum for the offering. An additional 5 TB are added for each additional license. A company with five Dropbox Advanced licenses can park 25 TB of data in the cloud. The limit is 1,000 TB.

According to Dropbox, 99 percent of customers use less than 35 TB per license. That 99 percent can keep the entire storage capacity and get an additional 5 TB at no extra charge. This transitional measure will apply for at least five years.

The limited number of users with more than 35 TB receives a special regulation. This storage is also retained for the time being, with a total of 5 TB as additional scope. Dropbox will be in touch with affected companies in the coming weeks to discuss a long-term resolution.

Additional Purchases

As part of the new Dropbox Advanced rules, you can also purchase additional storage separately at $10 per terabyte per month. Beginning November 1, users will gradually transition to the new rules. The rules apply to new customers with immediate effect.

Dropbox states that it has considered other measures, but it is not practical to check on a case-by-case basis whether the unlimited storage space is being used legitimately or not.