Increasing MySite OneDrive for Business Storage

I recently ran into the following error message when using OneDrive for Business via MySites (on-prem 2016).

“No free space. Your site is out of storage space and changes can’t be saved…”

The recommendation is to empty your recycle bin, but the recycle bin is probably empty.

The default storage limit for MySites is set to 100 MB (which doesn’t go so far these days).

If you already have a bunch of personal sites created, it’s not as easy as tweaking the quota template. You will need to update the quota template for future sites, then reset all existing sites to use the updated template as well.

Update the Quota Template

1. Go to Central Admin
2. Click “Application Management”
   
3. Click “Specify quota templates” under “Site Collections”
   
4. Change the “Personal Site” template to allow for more storage (I’d suggest at least 10GB, entered as 10240MB, but this will vary based on usage, industry, available space, etc.)
5. Click OK

Learn more on quota templates: Create, edit, and delete quota templates in SharePoint Server

Set existing sites to use updated template

Now that you’ve set the storage quota template for future sites, we need to update pre-existing sites to adopt this new storage limit. We’ll need to do this via PowerShell.

1. Remote connect to a SharePoint server
2. Open SharePoint 2013/2016 Management Shell as administrator (right-click, Run as Administrator)
   
3. Run the following script, replacing the web app address with your own, and the template name if different from Personal Site

   $SPWebApp = Get-SPWebApplication https://mysites.MYORG.org
   
   foreach ($SPSite in $SPWebApp.Sites)
   {
       if ($SPSite -ne $null)
       {
           Set-SPSite -Identity $SPSite.url -QuotaTemplate "Personal Site"
           $SPSite.Dispose()
       }
   }
   

And that’s it! Once that has run successfully, all of your MySites should now have the new limit in place.