Forum Discussion
Are OneDrive files included in SharePoint Online storage limit?
I am having a hard time finding a straight answer to this question, but it seems like something that needs to be spelled out as plainly as possible.
Do files in OneDrive for Business count toward the tenant's total Sharepoint Online storage limit? A yes or no answer would be fantastic.
For example... SharePoint Online allows 1 TB plus 10 GB for each licensed user. OneDrive allows 1 TB (default) for each licensed user. If the tenant's SharePoint Online total storage limit is 2 TB, this tenant would be limited to 2 TB for all SharePoint sites combined, despite the theoretical 25 TB limit per site. It would be impossible for any one site to use 25 TB. Since OneDrive document libraries are actually SharePoint sites, does that mean that the total storage available in OneDrive for Business for all of the tenant's users is less than 2 TB despite the theoretical 1 TB limit per user?
Jay Carper
Are OneDrive files included in SharePoint Online storage limit?
- No.
Do files in OneDrive for Business count toward the tenant's total Sharepoint Online storage limit?
- No.
Does that mean that the total storage available in OneDrive for Business for all of the tenant's users is less than 2 TB despite the theoretical 1 TB limit per user?
- No. You have to look 1DRV and SPO as two separated services with different limitations that are not combined.https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/sharepoint-online-service-description/sharepoint-online-limits
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/onedrive-for-business-service-description
8 Replies
No, they are separate:
SharePoint Limits
- Storage: 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased
Note: You can’t purchase additional SharePoint storage.
- Storage for site collections: Up to 25 TB per site collection or group
- Site collection per organization: 500,000
- Number of users: Up to 300
- Number of users for Business Enterprise plans: Up to 500,000
OneDrive Limits
- Storage: 1 TB per licensed user
- Number of users for Business Enterprise plans: Up to 500,000
- Why can't you buy additional space for SharePoint Online? It's available in the marketplace (some organizations are ineligible to purchase there): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/commerce/add-storage-space?view=o365-worldwide
- Storage: 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased
An up to date assessment:
Understanding SharePoint Online Storage
Understanding SharePoint Online storage used to be easy. Then applications like Loop arrived. Other influences like retention and archive can affect storage too. It’s a complicated situation before you throw OneDrive for Business into the mix and consider that Microsoft has removed unlimited OneDrive storage while an increasing number of apps store files in OneDrive. It’s a complicated situation.
https://office365itpros.com/2024/06/10/sharepoint-online-storage-2/
- Or - Microsoft resolutely refuses to think about "what is this like for the client" especially when the clients are anything other than other mega-corporates, and steadfastly insists on hiring multiple teams to do overlapping developments while refusing to pay any attention to the history and existing usage of the products and ... hires a lot of lawyers to write licensing agreements that are incomprehensible at best, rather than hiring some clear thinkers to make the product lines clear and simple. On the bright side, the documentation teams have started producing some good documentation over the last few years, so its possible that enough people crying loudly with despair will prompt a similar improvement in the Licensing and Terms of Trade teams. I'm ever hopeful.
Jay Carper
Are OneDrive files included in SharePoint Online storage limit?
- No.
Do files in OneDrive for Business count toward the tenant's total Sharepoint Online storage limit?
- No.
Does that mean that the total storage available in OneDrive for Business for all of the tenant's users is less than 2 TB despite the theoretical 1 TB limit per user?
- No. You have to look 1DRV and SPO as two separated services with different limitations that are not combined.https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/sharepoint-online-service-description/sharepoint-online-limits
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/onedrive-for-business-service-description
orchee thank you for beautiful clear answer laying out how crazy this situation is. Someone at Microsoft forgot to bring their brain to work one day, and made this set of conflicting storage limits, and nobody has dared fix the problem ever since...
FoolInTheRainMicrosoft
Sarah McMurray
You're welcome?
I will grant you it is easy to misunderstand the limits, but there is no conflict. ODfB is completely separate from SharePoint Online regarding limits/quota. SPO storage is shared and calculated based on # of licenses, while ODfB is a per user limit and not shared with anything else (SPO or other ODfB users). It used to be "unlimited" but now I believe is 25TB(?) max.
orchee Perfect. Thank you!
