How long will 5GB One Drive last relatively for a university student?

Hi D, 

Thank you for sharing your situation and explaining how you plan to use OneDrive and OneNote for your university studies. 

As this is a user-to-user community forum, I do not have the ability to directly access or modify your account or service. However, I can provide guidance, recommend next steps, share applicable resources, and direct you to the appropriate support channels so the issue can be investigated further. 

Based on your usage, 5GB may last for 3 years if your OneNote notebooks are mostly text-based notes, small attachments, syllabi, assignments, tutorial materials, and past papers. Since you are not planning to store textbooks and you intend to delete audio recordings after use, that will help reduce storage usage. 

The main factor that may use up storage more quickly is inserting lecture slides into OneNote using the printout function. When slides or PDF files are inserted as printouts, OneNote may store the pages in a way that takes significantly more space than regular typed notes or the original PowerPoint/PDF file. If you do this for many lectures across 10 classes per year, 5GB may not be enough for the full 3 years. 

To help make your storage last longer, you can try the following: 

1. Use typed notes where possible, as text takes very little storage. 
2. Avoid inserting every lecture slide as a printout unless you need to annotate directly on it. 
3. Attach or link the original PowerPoint/PDF file instead of inserting all pages as printouts. 
4. Only print out important slides, diagrams, charts, or pages that you really need to mark up. 
5. Delete audio recordings after reviewing them, as audio files can take up a lot of space. 
6. At the end of each semester, review your OneDrive storage and remove files you no longer need. 
7. Empty the OneDrive recycle bin after deleting large files, because deleted items may still count toward your storage until they are permanently removed. 

Regarding audio recording in a large lecture hall, the quality may depend on where you sit and the microphone being used. If you are far from the lecturer, the recording may pick up background noise, echo, or other students more than the lecturer’s voice. Sitting closer to the front or using an external microphone may improve the recording quality, but audio files can use more storage, so deleting them after use is a good approach. 

Since this is for university use, if you are using a school-provided Microsoft 365 account, I recommend contacting your university IT/helpdesk to confirm your OneDrive storage limit. Some schools provide Microsoft 365 Education accounts with more storage than a free personal Microsoft account, but the exact quota depends on your university’s license and storage policy. If your university account does not provide enough storage, your IT/helpdesk may be able to advise what options are available to you.

• In case you do not know who is your IT admin, kindly refer to this article: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support    

I hope this information is helpful. Should you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to share them in the comment below. I'm very happy to help.    

Thank you again for your patience and understanding.  

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