Google announced in early 2021 that storage limits for Google Workspace for Education (which you know as Rams accounts) would take effect at the end of 2022. *Unlimited* storage for Google Drive, Gmail, Google Photos, and Shared Drives has ended.
CSU's Division of Information Technology, working with representatives from constituent areas, has preserved the Google Rams service in continued support of our institution's important teaching, learning, and research needs. To do this, individual user limits (storage quotas) were applied to individual accounts on October 3, 2022. Shared Drives, which are counted separately, are also limited to 25GB through a manual process.
To preserve functionality for the tens of thousands of accounts who were in compliance, starting December 1st, 2022, a small number (about 1.4%, including accounts in the expiration cycle already) of individual accounts were removed. Shared Drives still over 25GB were also removed.
Storage Management
If you are nearing your quota, please review your current storage usage and delete any unnecessary files in Drive, Shared Drives, Gmail, and Photos:
- To confirm how much storage you're using, first log in to your Rams account, and then go to https://drive.google.com/settings/storage.
- To review and delete large or unnecessary files in Drive, first log in to your Rams account, and then go to https://drive.google.com/drive/quota.
- To review and delete large or unnecessary files in shared drives, first log in to your Rams account, and then go to https://drive.google.com/drive/shared-drives.
- Consider deleting Drive content that you may have copied to a shared drive. If a file resides in 2 locations, it may be consuming twice the storage space.
- To search for and delete unnecessary or large emails, go to Manage files in your Google Drive storage and follow the instructions for Gmail.
Please review our institution's Acceptable Use Policy and make sure you're using data in accordance with our policies. Usage over quota that negatively impacts the whole university's Google Workspace for Education account is considered a violation of the AUP.
History
During the course of 2022, all Rams account holders, specifically Rams account holders over the 25GB limit, and those attached to Shared Drives, were emailed repeatedly. Additionally, regular reports of potentially impacted users were shared with IT leaders across campus, who were also communicating with their users. As a result we saw a 1.8 petabyte voluntary data storage reduction, leaving only a small number of accounts to remove which were in violation.
Impact on sharing
Google docs "shared" with others have one owner; if that owner is under quota, access will be preserved. However, if the owner is over quota, the shared items may not be accessible or editable. Starting December 1, 2022, any items shared by accounts deleted for remaining over quota (see above) became inaccessible to anyone.
Help
Please contact your college or department's IT staff with questions or for guidance, or contact the central CSU help desk via email at help@colostate.edu