Dropbox is transitioning from its unlimited storage offering to a capped model to combat the disproportionate use by crypto miners.
Dropbox’s Advanced plan initially aimed to cater to businesses, ensuring they wouldn’t stress over storage needs while expanding. The company expected sporadic spikes in usage, but the unforeseen demand from users like crypto miners, individual storage hoarders, and resellers surpassed their anticipations.
Addressing this in a company blog post, Dropbox stated:
“To avoid endlessly defining ‘permissible’ versus ‘impermissible’ use cases for Advanced, and due to the challenges of large-scale enforcement of such distinctions, we’re phasing out the ‘unlimited space’ approach and introducing a metered model. Nonetheless, our priority is ensuring a smooth transition for our users.”
Under the revised Advanced plan, Dropbox will now offer 15 TB of storage for clients with three active licenses. This capacity can accommodate approximately 100 million documents, 4 million pictures, or 7,500 hours of HD footage.
Those leveraging Dropbox for crypto mining and similar high-storage operations will be prompted to seek alternative solutions or shut down their activities. Such misuse often consumed storage volumes multiple times higher than genuine business users.