Data Limits
Google will no longer provide ISU with unlimited data storage as part of our education service agreement with them. Adjustments may need to be made to your Google storage to avoid losing access to important files. Access to Google Photos will be turned off for students, faculty, and staff April 15th. All ISU Google Accounts will need to be under their storage limits by May 7, 2024. Alumni and retirees are on a separate timeline.
In allocating data limits, ISU’s Administrative Council reviewed overall usage numbers as well as usage broken out by different groups at ISU. With that information, they set limits to give maximum space to each group while still staying within the overall storage constraints from Google. Going forward, however, ITS has put together a Digital Storage Task Force which is charged with coming up with long term data storage recommendations to best serve ISU.
Data Limits
- Faculty (including Emeritus): 50 GB
- Adjunct Faculty: 30 GB
- Affiliate Faculty: 20 GB
- Staff: 20 GB
- Temporary Employees: 20 GB
- Students: 10 GB
- Alumni (not employees): 5 GB (email only)
- Retirees: 5 GB (email only)
- Departments: 20 GB
- Shared Drives: 20 GB
- Existing Service/Club Accounts: 10 GB
When someone has multiple roles at ISU, they are allocated the higher data limit. So, someone who is both an adjunct faculty member (30 GB) and a staff member (20 GB) will be allocated the higher 30 GB limit. It is not possible for individuals to purchase additional storage for their ISU Google Account at this time.
Your Current Use
To see what your current storage usage is, open your Google Drive and click Storage (bottom left). This page not only shows how much storage you are using, but also breaks it out by Drive, Gmail, and Photos. In addition, you can use the filters at the top–Type and Modified–to further filter what is in your storage. This can help as you make decisions about what to delete, what to move, and what to keep.
If your data storage total is not below your assigned limit by May 1st, you will no longer be able to save or edit anything that takes up storage space. You will still be able to open those things, move them, and delete them, but when you go to save, you will be stopped. You will also get constant reminders that you are over your storage limit.
Shared Drives & Files
These only count against the storage totals of the person who owns or manages that drive or file. To see who owns something, click the Share button (upper right) from within the document and a list appears of everyone who has been given access, along with the kind of access they have. The one at the top of the list is the owner.
If you use a Shared Drive or file that someone else owns, and if you want to retain access to it, you need to contact the owner and ask that they transfer ownership to you. This is especially important when someone graduates or retires from ISU. They could easily still be the owner of a document that is important to the university.
To see which files you use that belong to someone else, click Shared with Me in Google Drive. This only shows things that have been shared with you and their current owners. If you cannot get ahold of the file’s owner, please contact the Service Desk for assistance at help@isu.edu.
For more information, we encourage you to visit our Google Data Limits web page, or go to the FAQ page we have assembled just for Google storage questions.
If neither of these resources resolves your questions, reach out to the Service Desk at help@isu.edu.