Business Starter pooled storage not working

johanvdv · 07-09-2023 11:09 PM

I need to increase the storage for a small quantity of our staff, but are unable to do so. We are on a Business Starter plan and according to your pricing plans we get 30 GB pooled storage per user. Can anyone please clarify this for me.

https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_nz/pricing.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=1...

GuibsonPrieto

Hello Johan,

It seems that since March of this Year, the individual users pooled storage visibility (has changed, or is in the process of changing)

The idea behind this will be the following:
The amount of storage your organization has is “30 GB times the number of End Users.”

Important
Admins are able to set per-user storage limits . If they don’t, any account could use all the available storage.
To set the Storage limit from the admin console Click Here

Let me know if you need any additional assistance on this matter. if not, make sure to mark it as resolved.

johanvdv

Hi GuibsonPrieto,

It appears that our organisation's transition to pooled storage has not been completed yet. Although there are no storage limits set for individual users, each user is still restricted to 30 GB of storage. This limitation poses a significant problem as I currently have no means to increase the storage for a user under the current plan. Resolving this issue and enabling the allocation of additional storage for users is of utmost importance.

icrew

The only information I've seen/heard is "Pooled storage will start rolling out to existing Business Starter customers on May 22, 2023 and continue over the coming months. " (emphasis mine)

Not through any knowledge, just experience with Google over the years, I'd interpret that as "we're planning to get the roll out finished by the end of 2023"....

GuibsonPrieto

Please make sure that you search "Storage" in the admin console, hopefully the option is available, but not visible, once you see it, select "Storage use and settings" then you can update the user storage limit - to the number you want, see my example below shows how to apply it to an OU, but the same goes with the user at an individual level, good luck, please let us know if it worked with you.

Example below is with a domain with Business Starter Plan

hak

Hi, I have the exact same issue. On Business Starter, I have purchased additional storage, and change the user storage limit for the organisation to 200GB but the individual email setting is still at 30GB, can't seem to hcnage ot despite purchasing more. How do I solve? Thanks

johanvdv

I can see and set that option, but it does not flow through to users. Users remain on 30 GB. Apparently that will be enabled during the coming months, which is frustrating, because I have limited options in the mean time.

Google Workspace Updates : "...customers will transition to pooled storage over the coming months..."

MayhemRitual

Dealing with storage can be tricky sometimes; I get it. From my experience with a similar situation, the pooled storage is meant to be shared among users. So if you've multiple users on the Business Starter plan, the 30 GB is divided across them. But if you're still having issues, contacting customer support's always a good idea. Also, when starting the venture, make sure to know how to split equity among co-founders. That is also an essential thing.

johanvdv

That is also my understanding and is what I want, but Google is rolling the pool feature out during this year and they have not enabled it for us yet. In the meantime we are limited to 30 GB per user.

CS2

We are in the same boat. I was told that any storage purchased on individual accounts would not be included in the pooled storage. That's why you can restrict them at more then 30 until you actually have pooled storage. My concern is what happens when storage is pooled for our account. I received several different answers from support. One said it would be removed once storage is pooled, one said we would have it until our subscription is up for renewal and then we would no longer have it. Another said it would be grandfathered as long as we continued to pay. We are over what our pooled subscription would be without the extra storage we purchased so if we lost it, I would have to get more storage. The options I was given was to purchase more licenses, upgrade our subscription (double our costs), or purchase additional 10T of pooled storage (no lower increments are offered) for $390/month (CAD). One of the managers wants to move to Microsoft 365 Business Basic which is about the price of Workspace starter but with the individual storage of Workspace standard.

wout

Same boat here. Google Support mentioned in our ongoing ticket-thread that "Pooled storage will be enabled for your Google Workspace Business Starter subscription in the coming weeks with new admin controls." actually means "...coming months with Q1 2024 at the latest...". Although I do like the Pooled Storage feature a lot, this whole rollout for Business Starter at least is very confusing and messy.

Our main issue is that we have some colleagues almost on 30 GB storage, but we can't increase storage for individual accounts, unless paying exorbitantly.

CS2

So true. The pricing model does not favour companies that are at their limit with budget. I've been asked by the owners to look into 365 basic as an alternative. It would be a lot of work to move over but if they can save money going forward, they may choose this move. Its a shame as we've been working with this platform since about 2013. We used to have advanced device management but that was taken away a few years ago. We also had personal templates and had a lot saved there, and that was taken away. Now we can't buy personal storage and the pooled storage costs will triple what we are currently paying for individual storage. We currenty don't need 10TB of shared storage and won't require that much for many years to come. It's a shame.

GuibsonPrieto

Quick question, are you working with a Google Premier Partner? i have seen more progress with companies that are partnered somehow, but do not quote me on that, it is only my experience.

CS2

Not working with a partner.

icrew

As @GuibsonPrieto mentioned, you might want to reach out to a reseller partner about this--there is such a thing as "split domain" licensing, where you can have some of your users on a higher tier of license than the rest. But only resellers can help get that set up. See https://cloud.google.com/find-a-partner/?products=Google%20Workspace

Hope that helps,

Ian

wout

Split / partial licensing answer from Google support engineer: *** The partial domain licensing can be added only when the costumes have 100 seats and at least 15 of them should be on a higher SKU. ***

wout

Now getting a refund from Google Play Drive Storage, although we are still able to add files to Drive. Very very weird order of actions, as we still don't have Pooled Storage.

CS2

Correct me if I'm wrong. Someone along the way mentioned that if we did that, you wouldn't be able to share storage with the different tiers. They would only be able to share within the tier. This could be wrong because we have been given different information on this issue.

wout

I thought the old ways of increasing storage were discontinued, but I was wrong. Perhaps it's an option for those few of your users for these couple of months until Pooled Storage has actually been rolled our?

CS2

That ooks like it. We can still purchase individual storage. What's not clear is if or when we would lose that storage. I've been told we will loose it as soon as we get the pooled storage. Someone else told me that we will lose it when our license is renewed. We have a yearly license.

johanvdv

For us the increasing storage has been discontinued, so we are stuck with no reasonable solution. We do not have access to pooled storage and we cannot increase our storage while we wait for pooled storage to be enabled. It is frustrating!

CS2

I think they are trying to push organizations to upgrade. We have created
accounts just to archive items to free up space for users. We can
currently still purchase individual storage for now but I hesitate to do
that if we are going to lose it. I would rather have a solution in place
when it happens. I'm disappointed in the communication from Google on this
issue.

Christine Sasso

whyAusername

Is this real? we can't simply add storage. That pooled storage is ridiculous. Can't get any concrete timeline. https://support.google.com/a/thread/225329590?hl=en&msgid=225454109&sjid=8045328685892281092-NA We can't work right now unless we create ghost accounts or transfer ownerships of file to other active accounts, but that's a no because we don't want to share those files to them. That's a ridiculous way to handle additionnal storage. Currently considering moving out of google workspace. We need to work.

whyAusername

For us it finally came. We can now set the storage limit for each user! Finally!

GuibsonPrieto

Wow, FINALLY!! great to hear that, i have a couple of clients that we are dealing with some migrations and these are really annoying... but yeah, slow rollout

whyAusername

however we still cant buy more storage. There are no option available when we click on "need more storage?". This rollout is really bad. Our user had previously bought additionnal storage individually. that additionnal capacity is now gone. We can't add more capacity. As of now one of our organisation is exceeding by 200% their usage.

Google you should be more transparent and communicate better. What do we do from now on? This is not a 𝗚ame, this is our businesses.

> If you don’t see Google Workspace Additional Storage as an option, your edition or combination of editions doesn’t support this add-on
source : https://support.google.com/a/answer/12284220?fl=1&sjid=2014110527262334195-NA

If they are simply not allowing business starter to buy more storage, then, bye bye workspace, this is just unacceptable.

whyAusername

The option to buy more storage finally became avaialbe approximatly 45days after the pooled storage got enabled. To me, that is a problematic rollout. We had 15days left before our account were going to be switch to readonly because we would be out of space (we had a 60days grace period). We were trying to get split licensing for the last 57days instead of uprading each user to the above plan or pay 300USD/month for 10Tb. Our reseller couldn't accept the EzDeal (for split licensing) some reason and was waiting for google to solve that situation. Our reseller remove themselves from our account so that we could try to accept the EzDeal directly from Google. It did work, but we had 3days left before the grace period ended.

Looking back. I'm very displeased about all of this. This would have been solved with proper communication, proper rollout and should have required 1 or 2 email between us and our reseller. This took much more time than it should on our side. I'm unimpressed, though I've usually been quite satisfied with the usual rollout and communiction. What happened?

CS2

We don't have shared drives yet but it looks like we can purchase an option for 10 TB of pooled storage for $360 a month. This is more than we will need and less than upgrading our account to standard for the number of users we have. It is as if they are trying to discourage business standard but they will price themselves out for small businesses

TSnow

Set storage limits for users

Before you begin: To apply the setting for certain users, put their accounts in an organizational unit (to set by department) or a configuration group (to set for users across or within departments).

To get a warning if a group member exceeds the storage limit, make the group a filtering group and wait 24-48 hours before you set the storage limit

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu ➜ Storage.

2. In the Storage settings section, click Manage.

3. At the left, click the entity whose users you want to apply a storage limit to:Organizational unit–Click the organizational unit.

Group–Click Groups. Click the search field and begin entering the name of the group,then click the group.Note: Group storage limits always override organization storage limits, and you canarrange which groups override each other through group settings. Learn more about configuration groups

4. If the User storage limit section isn't open already, click it.

5. Select On and enter the amount of storage allowed for each user.

6. Click Save. If you set a limit for a child organizational unit that was previously inheriting a limit from a parent organizational unit, click Override. If you previously set a limit for a child organizational unit and you want it to inherit the limit from a parent organizational unit, click Inherit. If some users in an organizational unit already exceed the storage limit, you are warned. You’re warned for group members only if the group is set as a filtering group. For details, on this page see Storage limit warning messages. For Gmail and Photos, it can take up to 24 hours for the storage limit to apply. For Drive, the storage limit applies after the user next adds or edits a file.

TSnow

colebatchd

Thanks TSnow -- any updates on the pooled storage rollout? It's been "weeks" for "months" 😄

TSnow

I have no no clue when pooled will add to any one account, But most have it and just do not see it.

If you click on storage, you should see Using 876GB of 1TB of shared storage.

TSnow

CS2

I see that but I am still able to purchase more individual storage and my users with the extra storage are still using it. My shared storage should not have any available if they no longer have extra storage. I ahve not received any notification other than a banner in the admin console saying my the organizational storage is low. There is no shared drive option as well. I thought that was part of the pooled strorage. I can manage shared drives but not the shared drives creation in the sharing options.

TSnow

Shared drive is Business Standard or higher.

CS2

https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2023/05/pooled-storage-shared-drives-for-google-workspace-bu...

I currently have the manage shared drives but not the abilility to create a shared drive. AAccording to this bloog post it will be coming once the pooled storage rolls out to all starter customers

Krik1

TSnow - Thanks for helping users!

I too have the same query as others in this thread. When is the facility available?

It is distressing that a corporate such as Google has a large [and poorly handled] gap between announcement and provisioning.

The helpline has not been able to provide anything meaningful (implausible/unhelpful responses have included - a] to upgrade for the whole organisation b] create alternative usernames to help users who are running out of space).

Any insight that you offer TSnow would be welcome!

TSnow

You can make a request to upgrade users needing more storage.

Send request to: smb-workspace-renewals@google.com

Place your country in subject line for quicker routing.

You can also ask your account manager.

Krik1

Thank you TSnow!
Let me try that.

Regards to all in the thread/forum!

CS2

If you upgrade some users, will their storage be included in the pooled storage for the organization or will the ones upgraded have a separate pool,ed storage?

TSnow

No, It will not be a pooled storage for all.

But, you upgrade the high storage users and the storage they are using comes off the Business Starter edition.

If anyone would like me to look at your account drop me a private message with your Domain..

TSnow

whyAusername

Hi,

I did let you a private message. Do you think you can look at our case? Let me know, thank you