Google Workspace Storage

Google Storage: Read a June 7, 2023 email update from Donald J. Welch, VP for IT and Global University CIO, and Jeff Capuano, Associate Vice President, Global Infrastructure and Operations regarding the Google Storage project.

Project Overview

Google announced that it will be eliminating free, unlimited storage in Email, Drive, Google Photos, and Shared drives for its higher education clients, originally scheduled for July 2022. However, NYU, along with other universities, negotiated an extension to November 2024, which allows ample time to assess and develop solutions that meet NYU’s academic, research, and administrative storage needs.

No Immediate Changes Planned

For now, nothing is changing about NYU’s access to free, unlimited Google storage.

Partnerships Will be Key to Our Success

NYU IT is actively working with representatives from across NYU’s Schools and Units to think through and design potential solutions so that we are considering and accounting for a wide range of perspectives and needs.

Our goal is to maintain service quality, minimize disruption, and contain costs while addressing immediate needs and planning for the future. This will involve considering additional storage opportunities or other adjustments to accommodate this change.

What does this mean to me?

At the end of 2023, NYU will apply quotas to all Google accounts. Quotas set a limit on how much each account can store. Your quota will be applied based on how much storage you currently use, with limited room to grow.

No files will be removed or deleted when the quota is applied
Ample time will be provided for you to adjust to the quota and to clean up your Google storage, if needed
The quota will apply collectively to your NYU Email, NYU Drive, and Google Photos storage
Shared drives will also have quotas and follow the same timeline

When do these quotas take effect?

Quotas will go into effect at the end of 2023 to begin our transition away from unlimited storage.

What do I need to do?

No immediate actions are required. If you would like to do a quick check of your current storage usage, follow this link. If you would like to explore further, you may want to review the Digital Storage Spring Cleaning tips to learn how to manage your storage.

Goals

The first goal of this project has been to develop a comprehensive understanding of NYU’s Google storage. As a result of that project work, we now know:

The current storage usage distribution among Faculty, Staff, Students, Alumni, and others
The top users in terms of storage amounts
The growth trend for the top users
The basic distribution across Schools and Units of top Shared drives users

The project team is now using the results of this assessment of Google storage use to:

Evaluate our services and/or business processes to determine what needs to be redesigned or reconfigured
Engage with the impacted users (and associated School and Unit leadership plus their IT support units) to understand their needs

Next, the project team will:

Investigate and align archive, backup, and related storage solutions (including new services and identified changes to existing services)
Review and update policies around storage quotas as needed
Monitor storage usage and thresholds
Engage and communicate with the NYU community to guide them through the application of quotas at the end of 2023

Steering Committee

Key leaders from across the University make up the project Steering Committee. The Steering Committee supports the project goals by making decisions about how we will use Google storage in the future, and providing guidance to mitigate risks and assistance with engaging and communicating with the University community.

Steering Committee Members

Office of the Provost: Clay Shirky
Vice Provost for Educational Technologies

Stern School of Business, Information Technology: Razi Ahmad
Associate CIO, Security, Infrastructure & Operations

Finance and Administration, College of Dentistry: Ken Fauerbach
Chief Information Officer, Dental Center

Administration, Planning and Inclusion, Rory Meyers College of Nursing: David Resto
Sr. Director, Technology and Client Services

Office of the SVP Finance and Budget/Chief Financial Officer: Brian DeFuria
Chief Administrative & Business Officer

NYU IT: Jeff Capuano (Project Sponsor)
Associate Vice President for Global Infrastructure and Operations, NYU IT

NYU IT: Michael Warden (Project Advisor)
Associate Vice President for Global Service Management and User Success, NYU IT

NYU IT: Kitty Bridges (Project Advisor)
Senior Advisor on Strategic Initiatives, NYU IT

NYU IT: Arshi Chaudhry
Associate Vice President, Project Management Office (PMO)

NYU IT: Jen Spitz
Senior Director, Change Management and Project Governance

Timeline

2022
Google announced it is eliminating unlimited free storage for its Higher Education customers.

NYU IT kicked off a project to manage the transition for the NYU community.

Spring 2023
The initial quota strategy was approved by the project’s Executive Sponsors.

Partnered with School and Unit leadership to understand storage needs.

Planned specific organizational change management activities to prepare our community for the transition.

Evaluated alternate storage solutions and migration tools.

Tested and planned for the implementation of the quota strategy.

Summer 2023
Community engagement and communication

Winter 2023
Quotas will be applied to all active Google accounts, except for Alumni accounts.

Planning for the next phase of the project will continue.

We want to hear from you!

Questions, comments, and feedback can be submitted through the Google Workspace Storage Feedback form. All technical support questions should be submitted through the NYU Google ServiceLink form.