You really have to give it Dropbox, they seem to always find a way to give users more and more free storage space—from the free 500 MB space for referral sign-ups to additional 500 MB of storage for photo uploads. And now if you’re a college student anywhere in world, you qualify as part of Dropbox’s Space Race Program for an extra 3 GB of Dropbox space for two years, plus up to 25 GB of space for your school for two years.
Of course, while Dropbox offers all this free, it does want some of its freeloading customers to make a premium upgrade, but as one of the leading cloud services on the Internet, Dropbox is being pretty generous. Note also, the 3 GB of storage is in addition to the 2 GB of free space given to everyone who signs up for Dropbox.
To be eligible for the Space Race Program, you must meet the following the criteria:
- You must be an actively enrolled in a college or university or the equivalent of a university.
- You need to sign up with active email address from the school you attend (note: you also qualify if you already have existing Dropbox account).
- Your higher education institution must also have at least 25 participants sign up for the program (so announce it in one of your classes).
The program runs from October 15 to December 10, 2012. You sign up by visiting www.dropbox.com/spacerace. Any additional storage space earned through the program will expire on January 15, 2015, and thus accounts will downgrade to the users’ original, initial free space.
Source: TechCrunch
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If it weren’t temporary I’d really like it a lot more, I’d rather just pay if not for the fact that I wouldn’t want the extra space to go away.
I agree, Alex, if I weren’t writing a news article, I would have pointed out the same thing you’re saying. It’s difficult to get used to the extra 3GB and then have to downsize to it.
My University is currently at 8 GB :-).
Does anyone know what happens if the storage you got from this program is used and Dropbox downgrade your account in 2015? Can I use the storage until I free it up myself?
If I get it right, then the files would still be there, but you can’t add anything else until you free up your storage.
it’s temporary and for dropbox, I’ve noticed their recent small ( as they say but this is pretty big ) security glitch and since that incident I shifted to google… I mean dropbox can’t even manage user credentials… how can they handle our valuable data! O.o
Dimal, thanks for that feedback. Definitely sounds like issues that should be considered.
My friends and I are doing this for Pitt
Cool, Ryan.
How does Dropbox possibly make enough money to keep functioning as a business? I guess I underestimate how many people actually pay for premium. Good for them.
Seriously great question, Scott6. I would imagine institutions and businesses are the ones with the huge premium accounts. But my guess is as good as yours.
dropbox rocks
I’m not sure if someone here would be able to clarify this doubt for me, but here goes…
In the terms and conditions for the Space Race, it states that after two years, the storage space will drop down to the default space given to all free accounts. Does that mean I’ll lose any extra space I’ve earned all these days in addition to the 2 GB I initially got?
It’s very unlikely that this will be the case, but the phrasing of that condition seemed a little ambiguous to me.
Saeef, I would say you will not lose the other free space you’ve gotten outside of the SpaceRace program.
Too bad, I already graduated from college last April.
Looks like Dropbox is waiting for you to pony up on the premium account. I use Dropbox so much that I probably should be paying for the service.
LOL, all 3 Singapore universities in the top 10 (NUS 1st, NTU 3rd, SMU 10th). I’m from Singapore by the way.
What happens when the space expires? Does it still let you access the files taking up that space?
It almost seems pointless to get a few extra gigs when it’s only temporary.
Lee, they probably will give you a few notices that your account will be downsized and you will need to offline your account.
Great tool for my university workgroup
Good point, Diogo. Like say you’re working on a collective project.
Finally dropbox is a bit Kind.
Hani, you don’t think they’re kind to give the initial 2gb, plus additional space for referral sign-ups.
I had 2GB + 13GB free due to referals before this space race. Now i have 40GB. :D So i think i can’t complain about them not being a bit kind. :)
Awesome! I’ll try and get my peers to sign up!
Go for it, Edwin.
Not working with name@alumni.uts.edu.au, however, UTS does provide an alias to alumni which DOES work: studentId@uts.edu.au
Jason, contact Dropbox directly. Let them know.
I don’t see why there is a need for a students to require such a large amount of space on their accounts, but I feel it is of a great benefit for those who makes lots of videos
I think when people start using Dropbox for project files other than documents, they may need more than 2GB.
Dropbox is very good and satisfies my need for easy file syncing. I don’t require loads of space.
2gigs is enough, Ritwick? Mainly using storage for documents?
Ha Ha! I’m going for my Masters, so I have student ID and a .edu email address!
Cool, Shamuel.
but what about the file size limit???will it exceed too!
File size? I think file size can be as large as you like, but larger files will of course will take up more space.
I like the free space even if it is temporary. I can see the possibility of users forgetting they have this space and if they loose it randomly (would only seem random) that it would be very frustrating. I don’t think I’ve had very many oversize limit problems. Is there a limit on how long dropbox will retain data over your size limitation?
Paul, I think they will probably send out several notices before they reduce the storage space.
The truth is that Dropbox actually sends both a notice and when the time is up, they remove all unused space, so nothing is deleted. However, you can’t add anymore files, and you would have to delete them to add more. For example, If I get a free 20GB for 2 years plus the starting 2GB. After two years, I use up 15GB of my 22GB, Dropbox will cut it down to 2GB, but my 15GB worth of files aren’t deleted. I have to delete enough down to 2GB to be able to place files again, and I don’t get the deleted space back. Hope this clears things up.
I do not know how I managed before Drop Box!
Seriously…me neither.
I am still learning about Cloud Storage – going to give DropBox a try. Thanks
I guarantee you will like it, Debbie. Thanks for sharing.
Ha, so what. Microsoft offered 25 GB storage in Skydrive. I have to say Skydrive is much more useful for collaboration than Dropbox.
Yang, thanks for letting us know.
This is cool, although the temporary thing is annoying.
Yep, I agree, it is a drawback.
My private school does not provide students with .edu addresses :(
Jeremiah, maybe write them and see if there’s a work around for private schools.
I got 25GB space as great space racer but when i install dropbox it says “You are almost there! We see that you installed Dropbox, but it looks like you are using the same computer as other Space Racers. Install Dropbox on another computer to claim your 25 GB for two years!”….i uninstalled an unlinked my previous account but still not able to claim 25GB on my laptop…help??
Same problem here!
Get: “You are almost there! We see that you installed Dropbox, but it looks like you are using the same computer as other Space Racers. Install Dropbox on another computer to claim your 15 GB for two years!”
Eeeehhhh no. I don’t have another computer. Comeon Dropbox! :-(
Hey Kalle, copy and and paste your comment to Dropbox. I’m sure they will get back with you. Sorry I can’t be of help.
Same problem here…
Arpit, have tried writing Dropbox directly about this issue?
It is such a good promo!!
My uni is at 8Gb now finally!
i would love to have it too…. ;-)