Google Drive (Personal)

General

In February 2021, Google announced that its “unlimited storage policy for universities” would be changed to a “pool storage” policy for educational organizations. This means that the storage space for Google Workspace has been restructured.

See Google's announcement: Google Workspace for Education - The Keyword (blog.google)

Google Workspace Pool Storage

Due to the new structure of the “pool storage,” ETH Zurich currently has ‘only’ 550 TB of “pool storage” available, which is shared by all Google Workplace users.

Due to this new situation and the associated reduction in available storage space, the quotas for the various Google services will be reduced.

ETH Zurich's storage is currently calculated using the following formula: 100 TB (base) plus number of Google Education licenses x 20 GB → 22,500 x 20 GB + 100 TB = 450 TB + 100 TB = 550 TB

Google Drive (Personal)

Google Drive is a cloud-based storage service that let's you store, access and share files online.

Storage Space

In the Google Drive service description, Google does NOT specify the size limit of Google Drive. However, due to the new “PoolStorage,” Google can no longer maintain the expectations (unlimited storage) it has created. For this reason, the quotas for personal Google Drives will be adjusted as follows:

Data Durability and Backup

Durability

The system meets numerous compliance requirements and has certifications such as ISO/IEC 27001 and SOC 2/3, which ensure specific standards for data durability. Although the data in Google Cloud Services is highly durable, Google does not publish detailed information on the durability of Shared Drives within Google Workspace services.

Backup

Google Workspace offers automated backups and comprehensive version management, enabling quick recovery of data and previous file versions. Apart from the standard mechanisms available to users, we do not offer any additional backup options.

Guides & Helpful Links