OneDrive for Business storage plan updates and Next Generation Sync Client

This week Microsoft released an update on their OneDrive for Business storage plans and the availability of their Next Generation Sync Client.

New OneDrive for Business storage plans:

Microsoft is now offering Office 365 premium Enterprise, Government and Education plans unlimited storage for their OneDrive for Business. This includes unlimited storage for individuals in organizations with more than five people subscribing to one of these plans:

• Office 365 Enterprise E3, E4 and E5
• Office 365 Government E3, E4 and E5
• Office 365 Education
• OneDrive for Business Plan 2 and SharePoint Online Plan 2

Microsoft said they will begin rolling out the OneDrive for Business increased storage to those customers by the end of this month. The increase will start from 1TB to 5TB’s per user and the rollout is expected to be completed by the end of March 2016.

Not all Office 365 plans will receive the full unlimited storage benefit, all other Office 365 Enterprise, Business and standalone plans will continue to receive 1 TB of storage per user.

Next Generation Sync Client for Windows and Mac

With the release of the new OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client, Microsoft improved reliability, performance and are delivering core capabilities like selective sync and support for large files up to 10GB in size. The Next Generation sync client has removed the 20,000 file sync limit and for IT professionals OneDrive for Business has provided the ability to silently deploy and configure the client for end users. OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client is available for Windows 7, 8 and 10 (8.1 support will be added in the first quarter of 2016) and Mac OS X 10.9 and above. The Mac and Windows clients are available today!

The Next Generation Sync Client currently supports OneDrive for Business, but Microsoft says they will add support for SharePoint document libraries in future releases. The Next Generation Sync Client is designed to work side by side with the current existing sync client for the Microsoft customers who may need sync for both OneDrive for Business and SharePoint document libraries.

Additional features on the way

Microsoft is also working on additional features that include Office integration to support the co-authoring of documents and sharing, as well as a more seamless experience for users who are migrating from the existing sync client. These new features are planned for the first and second quarter of 2016.

Here are links for getting started with and deploying Next Generation Sync Client:

Get started with the OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client in Windows

Deploying the OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client in an enterprise environment

How will the OneDrive for Business storage increase affect your organizations workflow? Let us know by commenting below.