Google reversed its decision to limit the creation of files on Google Drive. Two months ago, the company decided to limit all Google Drive users to 5 million files, even if they pay for the extra storage. The company did it in the worst possible way, extending outreach by surprise and with no prior communication. Some users have logged in to find that they suddenly have millions of files over their new limit. Some of these users it’s business This suddenly removed the file limit on their computers, and because Google never announced this change, many people initially thought the limit was a bug.

It turns out that sunlight is indeed the best disinfectant. The story hit Tech News on Friday, with Google’s Ars officially stating that the file limit is not a bug and is actually a “security measure to prevent abuse impacting the stability and security of our systems”. system.” Google announced after the weekend’s backlash to “Close Google Drive Secret Files!” In twitter Monday night returns the range:

We recently released a system update to increase item limits to protect stability and improve performance. While this only affected a small number of people, we’re rolling back these changes as we explore alternative approaches to ensure a better experience for everyone.

—Google Drive (@googledrive) April 4, 2023

Google told us it originally created the limits to prevent so-called “abuse” of Drive, and with Google tweeting that it “want to explore alternative approaches to ensure a better experience for everyone” we may see more variations of this. Future operating limits. Google has been cutting costs over the last year, and it sounds like the company wants to do something to weed out the resource-hungry Drive users.

The problem with further Drive restrictions is that Google charges people for Drive storage, and the range it sells is measured in gigabytes and terabytes. Google Workspace business accounts get 5 TB of storage for regular accounts, and unlimited options are available by calling Google and negotiating with the provider. Google One, a consumer-level option for more storage than Google, excels at 30 TB and costs $150 per month. Drive isn’t just a Dropbox clone, as Google encourages developers to build a “Drive API” into their apps, giving developers an easy way to add cloud storage to their products.

The 5 million file limit applies to all of these people and is very small by most Google storage tiers. If you have 4KB files, you can get up to 5 million files in 20GB. Google has been selling storage to people who can’t use this new limit for some time and it’s not documented anywhere.

In the An answer In a rollback announcement tweet, Google added the understated line of the century: “If we have to make any changes, we’ll let users know in advance.”

The lack of communication was shocking. Original thread from February Driver Issue Tracker It’s a system administrator’s dream, with users sharing stories like: “We have a critical business operating system in animal health that’s currently being compromised. This caused major annoyance to tens of thousands of users in practice. Every day. Another user said: “This issue currently affects all of our UK sites and we are unable to use our full PMS integration due to this issue.”

These problems could have been avoided if Google had communicated the plan.

The Google Workspace team, which is part of Drive, knows how to run business software. There is totality in the group. Blogs And item system support where changes are announced months in advance. Available for commercial workplace users want Deliberately slow release schedule, etc. overall schedule For Google Workspace feature releases. For some inexplicable reason, all commonly used communication and publishing channels went out the window. The change rolled right into production without warning, as executives scrambled to figure out what went wrong.

It’s good that Google reversed this strange decision, but how did it happen? Why are standard operating procedures not followed? The workplace is a product that supports business, and businesses want stability. Deliberately breaking a trading system without warning is unforgivable. Maybe everyone on the Workspace team knows this, but somehow none of this organizational knowledge impacts Google’s overall operations.