Demystifying the Microsoft Dataverse Storage Model

As businesses progress digital transformation journeys, data volumes are growing exponentially. This includes consumption of Microsoft Dataverse cloud storage. 

Introducing Dataverse cloud storage

Dataverse is a data management platform built on Microsoft Azure. It stores data used by applications across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and the Power Platform.

Microsoft Dataverse segments data across three data types, which have capacity limits, as explained below:

• Database: Storing and managing table definitions and data.
• File: Stores attachments to notes or emails in Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Field Service and other applications. These include documents, image files, videos, PDFs and other files.
• Log: Records table and column data changes over time for analysis and reporting purposes. Log capacity is designed to help organisations meet auditing, compliance, and governance policies.

If you are admin user, you’ll want to monitor your Dataverse storage consumption and check available capacity. To do this:

• Sign in to the Power Platform admin center, and then select an environment.
• Select Resources > Capacity > Summary tab.
• View the data on the Summary page.

The storage capacity dashboard will be similar to the example below.

Dataverse subscription capacities

Default and accrued Dataverse storage capacities are detailed below.

Dynamics 365 Data Storage Capacities

The above table shows that the first user receives 10GB of database capacity. Each D365 Enterprise level licence added accrues a further 250MB of database capacity. Therefore 4 extra users would mean a total of 11GB (10 GB + 250MB x 4).

PowerApps Data Storage

Power Automate Data Storage

Note, customers can have as many flows as needed with the per flow plan. Each flow will increase capacity limits.

Power Pages Data Storage

Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages and Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, and Field Service applications use the same tenant and infrastructure.

Dataverse capacity (database file and log) is pooled across the tenant and shared amongst relevant application workloads.

There are additional Microsoft subscriptions beyond Power Platform that grant Dataverse capacity entitlements. Please refer to this Microsoft resource for details related to Microsoft Project for the web, as well as the Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide for information related to other entitlements.

Power Platform capacity add-ons

Apps, flows, or websites utilising the Dataverse consume varying amounts of database, file, and log capacity. 

If additional subscription capacity is required, the following add-on licenses can be added.

Subscription add-ons apply across a tenant and are not tied to a specific user. They can be purchased at any time and remain part of the subscription for the remainder of the subscription term.

Indicative monthly prices for additional storage capacity are:

• Additional Database Capacity @ £30.20 per GB
• Additional File Capacity @ £1.50 per GB
• Additional Log Capacity @ £7.50 per GB

How can you free up Dataverse storage?

If you find your is tenant exceeding a data storage capacity, you may be prevented from performing certain actions such as copying an environment.

When you navigate to the capacity page on the Power Platform Admin Center, it will provide analytics on which processes are using the most resources, and there are prompts on how to decrease space.

We recommend speaking to ServerSys or your current partner about strategies to keep you within your capacities.

Typically, the first step is to look at ways to reduce storage, this could be configuring audit logs or deleting hosted email attachments. You may also be able to use Dataverse Retention Policies or Azure Blob Storage to reduce storage costs.

If you are in a position where deleting data due is not possible for compliance or for other retention reasons, we recommend evaluating which Dataverse capacity add-ons are most cost-effective.

What happens if you exceed Dataverse storage capacity?

Microsoft will send notifications to administrators when any storage capacity has 15% or less remaining space.

Additionally, a warning notification will be sent when any of the storage capacities have less than 5% of space remaining, indicating a potential impact on administrative operations.

The final tier of notification will be activated when the tenant exceeds their storage entitlements, placing them in an “overage” situation.

This notification will alert the administrator that the following operations will be unavailable until the overage issue is resolved.

• Create a new environment (requires minimum 1GB capacity available)
• Copy an environment
• Restore an environment
• Convert a trial environment to paid (requires minimum 1GB capacity available)
• Recover an environment (requires minimum 1GB capacity available)
• Add a Dataverse database to an environment

An illustrative example of overcapacity

This tenant is 10 GB over in database usage. Despite having 200 GB of excess file storage, the tenant is considered to be in deficit. This tenant should free up storage or purchase more capacity.

However, if a tenant has extra space in the Database, this goes towards the maximum capacity for Log data types, but as only 5GB is remaining, this tenant would still be in deficit.

Dataverse Storage Capacity Questions?

Contact ServerSys for help optimising your cloud storage to ensure you make best use of the available capacities and avoid paying more than you need.

Related:

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• 15 Ideas to Level Up Your Dynamics 365 CRM