Amazon shuts down unlimited storage plan for Drive

Martin Brinkmann
Jun 8, 2017
Updated • Jan 4, 2018
Amazon, Companies, Internet
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Amazon announced recently that it will no longer offer an unlimited storage plan for the company's Amazon Drive storage solution.

The company launched Cloud Drive Unlimited back in March 2015. Users who signed up for an "Unlimited Everything" account back then were not restricted in terms of online storage space.

The company did offer another plan, "unlimited photos", which provided customers with options to store an unlimited number of photos on Amazon's cloud servers. Amazon Unlimited Photos has been part of Amazon Prime as well for no extra cost.

Back then we concluded that Amazon's Cloud Unlimited plan gave customers more storage for the money than any other service out there. The biggest gripe we had was not related directly to the unlimited storage plan, but to the Amazon Cloud Drive client that customers had to use to sync data with the cloud.

The program was inferior to the sync clients of companies like Dropbox. Another issue was that Amazon's Cloud Storage service lacked online viewers for common file formats such as Office documents.

Amazon shuts down unlimited storage plan for Drive

The frequently asked questions page on the Amazon website highlights the change. Amazon makes it clear that it will shut down the Unlimited Storage plan.

Amazon is now providing options for customers to choose the storage plan that is right for them. Amazon will no longer offer an unlimited storage plan. Instead, we'll offer storage plans of 100 GB for $11.99 and 1 TB for $59.99, up to 30 TB for an additional $59.99 per TB. Any customer that signs up for storage with Amazon automatically gets 5 GB for free, and Prime members receive free unlimited photo storage.

Customers get 1 TB of storage under the new structure instead of unlimited storage for $59.99 per year. This moves Amazon's offering closer to other providers. Here is how much other services charge for 1 Terabyte of online storage per year:

Amazon's offering is still less expensive if you just look at the price and ignore other features that may be available when you sign up for a paid plan.

Amazon announced that the change will happen on June 8, 2017. Existing customers will keep the unlimited storage plan for the entire period of the contract, but won't be able to extend it anymore. The following happens when the subscription expires:

  • Customers with less than 1 Terabyte of online storage space, and with auto-renew enabled, will be migrated to the 1 Terabyte plan for $59.99 per year.
  • Customers with more than 1 Terabyte of online space, or with auto-renew disabled, need to select a new plan manually on the Storage page.

Customers who are over-quota enter a 180 day grace period. This happens for instance when no new plan is selected if manual action is required. This makes the storage read only in that time period. If nothing is done in the period, content will be deleted automatically at the end of the grace period until the account is no longer over quota (starting with newest content).

Prime members will retain the unlimited storage for photos, but the plan is no longer available to non-prime members.

Now You: are you affected by the change? What is your take on it?

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Amazon shuts down unlimited storage plan for Drive
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Amazon shuts down unlimited storage plan for Drive
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Amazon announced recently that it will no longer offer an unlimited storage plan for the company's Amazon Drive storage solution.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. ascendedmind said on July 12, 2017 at 8:45 am
    Reply

    Totally agree, after bitterly learning this lesson from Amazon.

  2. Dave said on July 12, 2017 at 6:37 am
    Reply

    Forget cloud storage. You’re better off mailing your drives to the parent’s house for offsite backup in the long term. Much faster.

  3. Ascendedmind said on July 11, 2017 at 7:11 am
    Reply

    A class action law suit won’t ever happen Why? Amazon.com aka Jeff Bezos uses the arbitration clause to get such cases dismissed at the expense of the consumer. Google arbitration clause & you’ll see how Corporate America swindles the American Consumer.

  4. Anonymous said on July 10, 2017 at 11:47 pm
    Reply

    this could actually be something to get Trump railed up against Bezos. that rip off should bait and switch should be investigated by the DOJ since as a consumer you have other problems with for example comcast charging you if you use more than 1 TB of data a month. makes this thing even more expensive. I do see a class action law suit happening.

  5. Joe said on June 14, 2017 at 1:47 pm
    Reply

    I just cannot feel sorry for all the people on here complaining that they have until xxx date to download their 30 tb of data! First off, you should feel stupid for trusting anybody with the only copy of all of your data if it is that size. The cloud should be a secondary backup option *always*. All you should have to do is download whatever small amount of new data you have added but ave not had time to put on your local storage. To use it as your primary repository for critical (meaning anything you don’t want to lose) files is careless. Yes Amazon should come up with some options to ease the pain of these large accounts, but if you have 40, 60 or even 100+ TB of data like some of these people are complaining about and have not also invested in local storage then I don’t feel sorry for you.

    1. Mark said on June 14, 2017 at 4:12 pm
      Reply

      Perhaps you think like Jeff Bezos…Btw, is your last name Bezos?

  6. ed said on June 11, 2017 at 2:10 am
    Reply

    Amazon is just a store to buy toothpaste online….if you want technology go to GOOGLE or Microsoft…and please don’t put your business in Amazon Web Services, they can change suddenddly like Drive and you go to bankruptcy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT FEAR

  7. Edward said on June 10, 2017 at 2:07 am
    Reply

    Took me months to upload my photos, and now they cancel it. Very very upset!!

    1. Mark said on June 10, 2017 at 9:16 am
      Reply

      Edward, checkout Backblaze.com only $50 per year unlimited since 2007! Plus they’re others who meet or beat amazon…
      https://www.backblaze.com/best-online-backup-service.html

  8. mikef90000 said on June 8, 2017 at 11:27 pm
    Reply

    Due to overpriced CableCo internet service in the U.S., 2.5 inch external hard drives that fit in my safe deposit box are my best backup alternative. There is a very large demographic that can’t or won’t buy service with acceptable upload speed to make cloud storage worthwhile.

    1. Pete Miller said on June 9, 2017 at 8:09 am
      Reply

      @ mikef90000

      Right-on – Exactly my sentiments. For the increased cost per month on a higher tier
      I could buy 1 drive/month and have things under my own control and not be dependent
      on ISP nor any Cloud service.
      Notice how you are the only one mentioning this …but as you also mentioned,
      there are millions of “us” in the same boat ……..

  9. jasray said on June 8, 2017 at 10:37 pm
    Reply

    From reading comments, it sounds as though every user already knew in the back of his/her mind, that Amazon never intended, nor could they financially do so without an unnecessary cost to the company, to offer unlimited storage forever to the millions and maybe a billion users, so I wonder why all the sudden negativity when the “it’s too good to be true” moment finally arrives.

    The other miraculous non-intuitive understanding I glean from the comments is that Amazon is really helping people realize how ridiculous it is to think that they will someday use or need whatever terabyte of clutter they’ve uploaded now that those same folks will have to run out a purchase a perfectly fine WD Blue 7200 RPM hard drive for around $50.00 [lifetime storage].

    And it all comes as no surprise since I was driving a long stretch of Interstate 15 yesterday and saw people on holiday with a 50′ Winnebago, behind which was a car on a trailer, behind which was a boat, behind which there was six motorcycles on a trailer behind which was a dog trying to keep up with the family.

    But this is America, land of the possessed by their possessions [and, apparently, their data].

  10. Raul Lopes said on June 8, 2017 at 8:41 pm
    Reply

    I have until November to decide what to do
    They are killing a great service in my opinion, the price was good for the service but now it isnt and also the felling about this tatic they used to get more users is terrible and i also invited at least 4 users that registered to Amazon

    I don´t want to use this company services no more, only Netflix because I have no choice :)

  11. Matt said on June 8, 2017 at 7:13 pm
    Reply

    Well, damn! I have until November to download all my data.

    http://i.imgur.com/kRURCqK.jpg

  12. James said on June 8, 2017 at 6:30 pm
    Reply

    Very disappointed in their decision to end it this way. Making my current 32TB of data currently stored in the cloud read only, and then starting fresh with a new plan is the right thing to do for customers that have been loyal from the beginning. They are not even offering an option to pay for a hard drive service to back up the data to hard drive and mail it to you. BackBlaze does that and it’s FREE! I understand it’s business but sometimes businesses need to adapt to situations and instead of making everyone angry (current situation), why not give them something to at least ease the pain? Letting me keep the plan until my subscription runs out is not the answer. Giving me options to ease the pain, is the answer.

  13. Bullfrog said on June 8, 2017 at 5:39 pm
    Reply

    That’s business, plain and simple. So either use another free cloud service or pay for a commercial one. Imho best solution is to forget about the cloud and backup @ home, storage devices are cheap and you are in control of your data. If you have a different opinion, fine with me.

    By the way, I had my own experiences with Amazon, good and bad. My data in their cloud ? Are you kidding ?

  14. Harrie said on June 8, 2017 at 5:32 pm
    Reply

    78.8 TB on ACD after the Microsoft disaster super disappointed in Amazon !!

    1. Joe said on June 14, 2017 at 1:38 pm
      Reply

      It’s people like you who probably caused them to make this decision. I am not blaming you (or them) — but to put up almost 100 TB and actually expect them to not eventually care was a bit rash on your part possibly.

      1. Martin Brinkmann said on June 14, 2017 at 1:57 pm
        Reply

        I don’t think it is fair to put this on users. If Amazon, one of the largest “cloud” storage providers there is, gives users unlimited space, then you have any right as a user to make use of that offer.

        If Amazon would have done any research on the topic, it would probably stumble upon Microsoft starting to offer unlimited storage, and then later on canceling that option again. And Microsoft is also a very big player in the field.

    2. Housey said on June 9, 2017 at 2:02 am
      Reply

      78TB? Damn I haven’t even downloaded/uploaded that amount in the last 12 years.

  15. VideoHog said on June 8, 2017 at 3:36 pm
    Reply

    I have 14TB of videos and other data on ACD, which it’s taken months to upload, so I’m not best pleased. But rage-quitting is the worst thing you can do. If, like me, you have six months left to run, and they won’t delete your data for another six moths after my sub expires in December, then I have a year to see what might change between now and then. Six months anyway at least. Other cloud services may pop up. Or it gives me time to save up for another bunch of hard disks – which are NOT cheap when you’re buying RAIDZ6 using FreeNAS/ZFS.

    1. Joe said on June 14, 2017 at 1:50 pm
      Reply

      @ VideoHog — yours is one of the few well thought out responses on here.

  16. Anonymous said on June 8, 2017 at 3:10 pm
    Reply

    amazon the reply to me …

    I’m sorry to know about your disappointment regarding Cloud Drive unlimited plan.

    I understand your concern that the removal of Unlimited plan and implementing new tiered plans is really disappointing as they’re really expensive. Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused due to the situation.

    I completely agree with you that, and personally feel it disappointing to see the unlimited everything plan taken down and implementing tiered plans which is very expensive. I’d like to inform you that this change was brought due to business requirements and was never an intention to cause inconvenience to our valued customers.

    Customer feedback like yours will help us improve our services. I’ll make sure, appropriate people in our company address about the problem being faced due to the implementation of the new plans.

    It is always important for us to hear how customers react to all aspects at Amazon.com. Customer feedback like yours helps us continue to improve our products and provide better service to our customers.

    I’d request you to please give us some time on this, customer interests and feedback is always looked into at depth here at Amazon. We’ll surely try an action upon your request as soon as possible. Rest assured, we are here to take care of issues you encounter and we always endeavor to provide the best service to our valued customers.

    I understand your concern regarding Migration. One major con of the migration process is that your content in Amazon Drive will be lost as your storage space in Amazon.com will be deactivated and collapsed and new storage space will be provided on your preferred marketplace.

    I request you to create back up of all the content in cloud by downloading it to your PC/Hard-drive.

    Once you are done with back-up, do write back to us and confirm that you have saved all your content so that we can proceed with your Amazon Drive account migration from Amazon.com to your preferred marketplace.

    In case if you have any further queries, please feel free to write back to us and we’ll be more than happy to help you.

    Your patience and understanding is highly appreciated in this regard.

    We look forward to seeing you soon.

  17. kalmly said on June 8, 2017 at 3:01 pm
    Reply

    Ahem. The cloud. I never liked the idea of using the cloud for applications, and I don’t have an online storage account. I’ll just stick to the backup to external hard drive method. That way no one has access but me, no one can change anything but me, and it costs me the price of the drive. No surprises.

    1. Wayfarer said on June 9, 2017 at 12:30 pm
      Reply

      I’m with you kalmly.

      After years of having cloud services pushed at me on every device, I have no use for them whatever. I did dabble for a while, but even on my moderate ADSL it just took far too long to move stuff – expecially uploads, plus I live in a rural area where my internet connection (otherwise fine) can vanish or degrade without notice. And I’ve lost count of friends and neighbours who’ve lost everything – photos, documents, personal files – when online services failed or were hacked. Plus I’m not sure how many of these services I trust. Even if I did use the cloud, these shenanigans by cloud providers would be the last straw.

      As others have said, local storage is now so cheap I find it hard to justify anything else – for my own purposes of course – I appreciate we all have differing priorities. I’ve swapped out my laptop DVD burner for a second 1TB HDD, and back up constantly and – importantly – very quickly. I used to back up weekly to a couple of USB HDDs, but these have been replaced with an inexpensive NAS, so it’s daily now. Though still under investigation (aka haven’t a clue so far) my son and I are investigating using each others’ NASs remotely for very important files.

  18. Anonymous said on June 8, 2017 at 2:46 pm
    Reply

    Very disappointed in Amazon, I will now stop using them for anything else.

  19. AllThisEvil said on June 8, 2017 at 1:51 pm
    Reply

    Check Data Hoarders sub on reddit!
    GDrive for business offers unlimited for 99$ / Year.
    Officially you need 5 users to get unlimited, and only 1TB for one user, but it is not enforced.
    AFAIK they also offer a trial.

    Plus much better then ACD; Full RCLONE support! Perfect for NAS backup!

    Again, check reddit for more infos..

  20. Nerdebeu said on June 8, 2017 at 1:43 pm
    Reply

    I am furious. I tested for 3 months (or 4, I do not know anymore), what I know is that the subscription and therefore the payment started on May 23 for a year and for unlimited storage. I had uploaded 570 GB and I wanted to save all my video library (3 TB). Amazon was the only one that allowed me to do it without having to calculate. I already have cloud subscriptions elsewhere (Dropbox Pro 1TB and OneDrive 1TB with my Office subscription) and if I took another subscription, it was for this reason, otherwise I would never have taken a third subscription.

    1. Tim said on June 8, 2017 at 3:45 pm
      Reply

      I feel for you. A while back I was considering doing the same with images and video footage, but fortunately I decided against it in the end and stuck with local storage instead, in part because I didn’t trust cloud storage providers. I had a gut feeling that they were either going to cap unlimited plans, and/or suddenly bump up the price of their plans and so idea of then having to shift that amount data around again really wasn’t appealing.

      As the poster further up said, it is without doubt bait-and-switch tactics. Offer unlimited storage, wait for people to upload all their content, then change to limited storage plans only. It has pretty much enforced my gut instincts though to stay clear of cloud storage and subscription software.

  21. Huh said on June 8, 2017 at 12:33 pm
    Reply

    You mentioned Microsoft onedrive for a single user.
    What about Office365 Home for 5 users = 5*1TB?
    I see the annual price as $100 if US, or $80 if Western Europe..

    1. Nerdebeu said on June 8, 2017 at 1:43 pm
      Reply

      Yes 5*1 TB

  22. Kelly Dowhower said on June 8, 2017 at 12:11 pm
    Reply

    Still cheaper than most. I’ll hang on to the $59.99 1-TB plan. I have less that 100 GB on there right now. So, the TB suits me fine. I also backup on external hard drives as well. Unlimited never seemed realistic to me. In the future, I plan on cleaning out my Amazon storage quite a bit. I’ve still got c. 6 months left. I may very well end up switching over to the $11.99, 100 GB plan–so, it actually might save me some serious cash! =)

    Also, thanks for publishing this–Amazon sent me a message but I closed it and couldn’t find it again on their site.

    Thanks! =)

  23. Anonymous said on June 8, 2017 at 10:59 am
    Reply

    go to hell, Amazon!

  24. wybo said on June 8, 2017 at 10:46 am
    Reply

    Not a fan of Amazon. Microsoft did the same thing with their unlimited plan. They just use it to lure people to sign up.

    I have several free Mega accounts, mainly to sync my tunes, and about 10TB of external hard drive capacity. Safer and it does the job for me

  25. cris said on June 8, 2017 at 10:36 am
    Reply

    another unlimited become limited :( … maybe some alternative?

    like backblaze

  26. AnorKnee Merce said on June 8, 2017 at 9:44 am
    Reply

    All these new and greedy Cloud storage companies have used the bait-n-switch sales tactic, ie first bait users with unlimited storage and then switch to limited.

    A 1TB hard-drive only costs about US$70 which can be used for storing your data locally and/or shared among your local home/office network = more secure as well. If you want, you can enable Remote Access for your computer, ie for your data to be remotely accessed by your mobile devices through the Internet = but less secure.
    Why pay these greedy companies US$60 to US$100 per year to store 1TB of your data in the Cloud or on other people’s hard-drives.? This makes little money sense.

    1. Yuliya said on June 8, 2017 at 10:18 am
      Reply

      This. All companies did this, first lure users in, then raise the prices. At this point they either pay or lose the uploaded data. Also HDDs are so cheap nowadays that “cloud” storage is a complete rip-off. I can get a 1TB external HDD for the equivalent of less than 60USD here.

      1. Martin Brinkmann said on June 8, 2017 at 10:32 am
        Reply

        It is obviously pretty inconvenient if you need to move hundreds of Gigabytes of date in a short period of time to your local system (if you have enough space), or park the data on another cloud service that offers better terms.

  27. Hugo said on June 8, 2017 at 9:20 am
    Reply

    AMAZON IS A CRAP

  28. Anonymous said on June 8, 2017 at 7:36 am
    Reply

    fucking pissed off, wasted 2 months uploading shit, on chat now getting a fucking refund

    1. Mark David said on June 9, 2017 at 1:26 am
      Reply

      Email jeff Bezos: Jeff@amazon.com &/or send letter to Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com P.O. Box Seattle, Wa 98108
      Then call Amazon Cloud Service 1-866-216-1072 & finally file a complaint report on Ripoffreport.com to get noticed in the search engines within 24 hours. Jeff Bezos & Amazon.com will appear on 1st page of Google Research regarding this. So use these names as much as possible to get exposure in Google search.

      I recommend using the following subject heading or headline to get noticed & read by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com:

      “Jeff Bezos Resorts to Bait & Switch & Angers Amazon Drive Unlimited Cloud Storage Fans…

      Remember to include all the contact info on Ripoffreport so others will read & complain also. To save time you could just let ripoffreport email Jeff@amazon.com.

      The report cannot be legally removed by Jeff Bezos, Amazon & or any attorney so be calm, honest & just state the facts of how you felt angered, deceived or misled by the bait & switch tactics of Jeff Bezos, a reflection of Amazon.com.

      Ripoffreport will automatically email Jeff Bezos to allow him to respond or reply back w/o revealing your contact info. I have nothing to hide or fear. I want results w/o resorting to a class action lawsuit. Remember law firms do read this to find lawsuits with a strong case or with merit . So state the facts.

      Remember, no threats should be used.

      1. Anonymous said on June 12, 2017 at 9:41 pm
        Reply

        thanks for doing this. I feel It’s like a bait and switch. got us to use theirs service and now all my photos are on it change the option. usually companies offer more storage for less not less for more. Very disappointing.

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