I'm trying to understand the current storage limits for Microsoft 365 or Office 365 E3 and higher plans. In the past, organizations with at least five eligible accounts could assign 5 TB of OneDrive storage per user, request an increase to 25 TB after reaching 90% usage, and then request additional 25 TB SharePoint storage increments as needed. Current Microsoft documentation only says that E3 and E5 users receive up to 5 TB initially and that eligible enterprise customers should contact their Microsoft representative for additional storage. Does the old escalation process still exist, particularly the initial increase to 25 TB? Are there published eligibility requirements, or is unlimited and expanded storage no longer generally available?
4 Answers
There doesn’t appear to be a guaranteed unlimited-storage entitlement anymore. The documented baseline is the initial 5 TB, with additional capacity handled as an exception through Microsoft or an account representative. Microsoft does not seem to publish clear criteria for which customers qualify.
The phrase “eligible enterprise cloud customers” is intentionally vague in the public documentation. It likely means Microsoft evaluates the tenant’s size, business justification, usage, and commercial relationship rather than granting the increase to every E3 or E5 customer. You would need to confirm the current options with Microsoft support or your licensing representative.
Some administrators report that the older 25 TB expansion path is no longer available for newer tenants, with changes reportedly taking effect around October 2025. Additional storage may still be possible for certain enterprise customers, but it would likely be a paid or individually negotiated arrangement rather than an automatic plan benefit.
Once the data gets into the multi-terabyte range, OneDrive may not be the best place for it. A SharePoint site, Azure Files, or another dedicated storage platform is usually more appropriate, although SharePoint storage can become expensive and Azure Files does not provide an identical OneDrive experience.
The reason I’m investigating this is that SharePoint storage is too expensive for our needs. We don’t necessarily need unlimited capacity, but getting the first increase to 25 TB would make a major difference. I’m also not sure Azure Files would work as a practical OneDrive replacement for our users.