2 min

It was not easy to move massive files from a desktop to Microsoft’s cloud services. That just changed with the introduction of capabilities that now allow this to happen. The company has increased the upload file size limit to 250GB, from 100GB.

The limit will apply to the Microsoft 365 platform, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. In 2020, the limit was raised from 15GB to 100GB.

Microsoft is introducing this as a way to corner the remote learning market and work-from-home people, who may want to share large files like 4K video files, CAD files, 3D models, and heavy datasets.

The markets targeted

Customers in media, transportation, healthcare, and heavy manufacturing will benefit from a feature like this and likely use Microsoft products. The feature is a response to the changing times and aimed at business or education-related purposes. However, personal use is also fine for moving files from the desktop to OneDrive.

One might wonder, how did they do it?

In a blog, the company explains that it achieved this by optimizing storage for upload performance. Each file is split into chunks, and every piece is encrypted using a unique key for security.

Easy uploads and downloads

All the files have backups on Azure Storage, meaning better performance and high availability. Uploads and downloads will also be easy, as larger files can now be accessed from wherever, whenever.

Before now, the ‘differential sync’ was used to accelerate uploads, and the only sync changed elements of a file.

The same is true now, ensuring that the time to sync to a Windows or Mac device from Teams, OneDrive or SharePoint, is reduced. The supersize load limit may not be visible immediately and will take some time to finish rolling out everywhere.