THE CRUNCH
Microsoft is changing how cloud storage is allocated on shared Microsoft 365 plans. Family, Premium and Pro subscriptions will move from 1TB assigned to each user to a single 2TB pool shared by everyone on the account. For a six-person household, that cuts total capacity by roughly two thirds. The change applies at subscription renewals after May 2, 2027, unless subscribers switch plans earlier, and some affected accounts may receive bonus storage, though Microsoft has not said who qualifies.
The company's stated rationale is that pooled storage flows automatically to whoever needs it, so individual users are less likely to hit their own limits, and any extra storage the main subscriber buys benefits the whole group. That genuinely helps households with one heavy user and several light ones. The maths is less kind to accounts with several large users: four people storing 500GB each would need to buy extra capacity, starting at $1.99 a month for 200GB.
There is also a quirk worth knowing: for a single person wanting 2TB, the Family plan at $129.99 a year is cheaper than the Personal plan at $99.99 plus the $119.88 annual add-on needed to reach the same capacity. Microsoft has not raised subscription prices, but the move trims the load on its storage servers while nudging multi-user accounts towards paid add-ons.
The timing looks like a response to a broader storage squeeze. Hard drive prices reportedly surged 46% between September 2025 and January 2026, and 30TB enterprise SSDs now cost around $22,600 with supply sold out until 2027. Rivals are tightening too: Google has reportedly cut its free storage limit from 15GB to 5GB, and Backblaze has updated its terms to allow throttling or termination of accounts that exceed what it calls typical usage.