Google Workspace Storage Project

Purchasing || Storage Timelines || For Local IT || Storage Committees || Tips || Stay Informed

As a result of Google’s discontinuation of unlimited storage, NC State University continues to work toward reducing its storage allotment to comply with Google’s policy change. This required employee and student quotas to be placed on all accounts for Drive, Gmail, and shared drives.

Effective April 2024, 2.4 Petabytes will be funded centrally by the University.  This still falls below the University’s current consumption, so storage reductions will continue.

If you fall under the quota for your classification (employee, student, etc.), then no additional action is required.

If you are currently above the quota for your classification, you initially received a temporary exception and now need to begin to remove/move content prior to the fall of 2024.

May 3, 2024

• Communication to ALL employees and students about files and folders owned by alumni/withdrawn students and former employees VFEs that will be labeled for deletion in September.  Use drive labels to identify files and move or make copies before the deletion deadline.
• 60 day warning to employees with exceptions greater than 100 TB

May, 2024

• Communication to local IT staff about unattended and unmanaged shared drive deletions (deletions to occur in September, 2024)
  • As with the previous shared drive deletions, local IT staff should actively ensure their department shared drives have active managers.  Read more here.

June, 2024

• 30 day warning to employees with exceptions greater than 100 TB
• All undergraduate student exceptions removed; all undergraduate quotas at 15 GB
• All graduate student (with temporary) exceptions lowered to 100 GB
• Second warning about deletion of former employees (VFE)/alumni/withdrawn student files (pre-May 2022)

July, 2024

• 60 day warning to Local IT staff about deletion of unattended and unmanaged shared drives
• Removal of 100 TB employee exceptions; step down to 10 TB exception
• 60 day warning to employees with exceptions greater than 10 TB

August, 2024

• 30 day warning to Local IT staff about deletion of unattended and unmanaged shared drives
• 30 day warning to employees with exceptions greater than 10 TB

September, 2024

• All graduate student exceptions removed; all graduate student quotas at 15 GB
• Deletion of unattended shared drives; Unmanaged shared drives
• Final warning about deletion of former employee (VFE)/alumni/withdrawn student files (pre-May 2022)
• Removal of 10 TB employee exceptions; step down to 1 TB exception

November, 2024

• Google enforces NC State’s quota

 

• View more reduction events in the SCHEDULED drop down below:

For Local IT Staff

• Google Storage Resource Kit
• Google Storage Timeline

Please review our Google Workspace Storage Quotas knowledge article for details about individual storage quotas.

Storage Project Timeline and Milestones

2023	September through December	Oct: Sept: Begin working with selected departments, colleges or units to understand what types of data are in their Google accounts. Sept: Continue to offer workshops, improve and enhance storage KB’s and other documentation for campus. Sept: Provide ongoing updates via OIT News.
2023	June through August	August: Storage quotas announced to campus. July: Presented revised, final recommendations to the CITD. July: Workshop scheduled on IT Reporting Tool (slides from presentation) July: Released [My] Drive inventory tool (Beta/Test version. Must have the link. Not searchable from Google Marketplace) & Labeling Project for “to be deleted” files to CITD forum for testing. June: Meeting with CITD to present recommendations and receive feedback. June: New student orientation: Quotas announced to new students 15GB. June: Update provided to campus in OIT News. June: Storage Finder released for general availability.
2023	March through June	April: Task Force released its report and recommendations on Google’s changes to “unlimited storage”. CITD presentation by Dr. Hoit Review Storage Working Group’s Dec. 16, 2022 report. Identify any gaps. Determine the best path forward for campus storage options. April: Implementation Steering Team formed to address recommendations from Task Force; team meeting bi-weekly. April: IT Reporting Tool enhanced to provide IT staff with sorting by 2, 4 or 6 digit OUC and exports to a CSV file.
2023	January through March	GST continues to pull together data on our environment as we prepare for the Strategic Task Force report Review options for end users to more easily identify these files. Labeling Pilot project starts in May; feedback is due in mid-June. Review management tools for Shared Drives & current storage usage. Continue to improve reporting assets in IT Reporting Tool (formerly Google Reporting Tool) Added ability to search by 2, 4 or 6 digit OUC and export to a CSV file.

Storage Management Tips

 

Strategic Task Force on Storage

The Strategic Task Force on Storage had seven recommendations for storage on campus, which are listed below. For the full report, see Final Strategic Storage Task Committee Report.

1. Improve usability of OIT Research Storage
   1. Usability improvements are multifaceted and include items such as: ease of access, ease of moving data into it, etc.
   2. Consider use of focus groups and coordinate with users already using research storage and new users to gather additional information and understanding
2. OIT and College IT offices will work with the heaviest users of Google storage to optimize use.
   1. These people can help define and improve research storage (possibly form the focus group)
   2. This will be a good source of information for use cases that don’t clearly fall in the desired Google Storage or Research Storage services.
3. Implement Google storage quotas for all faculty, staff and students by August 1, 2023.
   1. Initial quotas will not affect any user or account as we work through the process. Everybody will start where they are now with regards to storage usage
   2. Goal of at least a 30% buffer to make sure everybody can continue work unimpeded
   3. Allows us to “stop the growth” by having incoming accounts under a quota
4. Develop a communications plan.
5. Develop a long-term plan for the broader campus community to reduce its usage of Google storage and increase Research Storage.
6. Make short-term purchases of storage from Google to support the implementation timeline.
7. Develop a long-term storage strategy for NC State.

Storage Implementation Steering Team

Based on the Storage Task Force’s recommendation, the Implementation Steering Team is tasked with implementing the reduction of Google Storage use and improving Research Storage. The team’s goals include:

• Initial quotas for faculty, staff and students will be rolled out by August 1 (Recommendation 3) and will not require any user to reduce their storage. This approach allows our campus to slow down our storage growth while we review what’s being stored in Google along with alternative solutions if necessary.
  • Over the next twelve to twenty-four months (Recommendations 2 and 5), IT staff and members of the Google Service Team will work together with users who have large storage needs and consider alternatives for storage locations.
• No files in Google storage at NC State will be moved or deleted until the campus community has more information on storage options for large data users as well as a chance to review any files slated for deletion.

Google-allocated storage quota for NC State: ~1.4PB

Stay informed

• Subscribe to OIT News for updates.
• Stay alert for targeted emails from the Google Service Team.
• Commonly asked questions and Knowledge Base articles.
• Work with your local IT staff.
• Upcoming training and outreach events.