Google Drive does a shock rollout of file limits, locking out some customers
“Please delete 2 million recordsdata to proceed utilizing your Google Drive account.” That was the message that Reddit person ra13 woke as much as someday. Google apparently determined to place a tough restrict on the variety of recordsdata you are allowed to have on one Google Drive account. Google rolled out this file restrict with out warning anybody it might occur. Customers over the restrict discovered themselves immediately locked out of recent file uploads, and it was as much as them to determine what was going mistaken.
Did we point out this all began in February? A submit on the Google Drive API issue tracker reveals some customers have been seeing this error for nearly two months now. The unique message mentioned: “The restrict for the variety of gadgets, whether or not trashed or not, created by this account has been exceeded.” And someday in March, it was up to date to say, “Error 403: This account has exceeded the creation restrict of 5 million gadgets. To create extra gadgets, transfer gadgets to the trash and delete them perpetually.” Since there’s nothing anyplace that informs customers Google Drive has a file restrict, customers initially thought this was a bug and requested Google to shortly repair it. It has been two months now, although, and Google has not issued a public response. Some users say they’ve gotten Google Assist to privately affirm the restrict is meant, and a pop-up message is beginning to present up within the Drive UI for some customers.
It could be comprehensible to restrict an information hog abusing a free account, however that is not what’s taking place right here. Google is promoting this storage to customers, through each the Google Workspace enterprise accounts and the consumer-grade Google One storage plans. Google One tops out at 30TB of storage, which prices an unimaginable $150 a month to make use of. Google Workspace’s formal plans cap out at 5TB, however an “Enterprise” plan guarantees “As a lot storage as you want.” From what we are able to inform within the varied feedback on Reddit and the difficulty tracker, each client and enterprise account varieties are topic to this hidden 5 million file restrict.
Google Drive has a file-sharing restrict of 400,000 recordsdata, however that is simple to work round by simply unsharing recordsdata—you do not have to delete something. This restrict can be thoroughly documented in Google’s assist articles. The 5 million complete file cap is not documented anyplace, and keep in mind, it has been two months since this rolled out. It isn’t listed on the Google One or Google Workspace plan pages, and we’ve not seen any assist paperwork about it. Google additionally would not have any instruments to see should you’re getting near this file restrict—there is no depend of recordsdata anyplace. We have emailed Google a ton of questions and can replace this if we hear again.
5 million 4KB recordsdata would take up 20GB of storage, in order that file restrict is nowhere close to sufficient for Google clients to make use of the storage they’re really shopping for. You would very simply retailer billions of recordsdata in 30TB of house. Even when Google goes to someway argue this restrict is suitable, it is inexcusable to make this a shock for paying clients. Google is aware of the appropriate means to do that: you e mail everybody, you make a weblog submit, and also you submit a pop-up warning message within the Drive UI, and also you do that all months forward of really rolling out the change. Particularly for Workspace enterprise clients, that are purported to be paying for a extra secure model of Google’s companies with a gradual rollout, a shock change is simply baffling.
(Replace, 5:57 pm: A Google spokesperson confirmed to Ars that the file restrict is not a bug, calling the 5 million file cap “a safeguard to stop misuse of our system in a means which may influence the soundness and security of the system.” The corporate clarified that the restrict applies to “what number of gadgets one person can create in any Drive,” not a complete cap for all recordsdata in a drive. For particular person customers, that is not a distinction that issues, but it surely might matter should you share storage with a number of accounts.
Google added, “This restrict doesn’t influence the overwhelming majority of our customers’ skill to make use of their Google storage.” and “In follow, the variety of impacted customers right here is vanishingly small.”)
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