Penn State will discontinue the use of Box, its cloud storage service, in 2021, the university announced Monday.

All data from Box will “migrate” to Microsoft OneDrive and Sharepoint, which Penn State called its “preferred cloud storage solutions.” Migration will begin as early as this fall, and all students, faculty, and staff will have their data migrated by June 30, 2021.

“OneDrive and SharePoint are excellent storage and collaboration tools for use within the University, and they are included in our Office 365 suite of applications available at no charge to users,” Interim Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Don Welch said.

The university said Box’s increased contract was a factor in its discontinuation. Additionally, Penn State’s Box usage increased by 54% over the last year, which increased demand and prompted the move.

Moving away from Box may be advantageous for students and faculty alike. Penn State believes OneDrive and SharePoint are better when it comes to protecting sensitive information and says its auto-save features are more reliable. Additionally, moving away from Box will allow students to “better leverage the complete suite of powerful applications in Office 365.”

Currently, Box users don’t need to take any action in the migration process. Penn State IT will announce more in the coming weeks and work with students to move their files. The university encourages students not to migrate files on their own.

More details of the migration to OneDrive and SharePoint can be found here. If you have any questions about the process, you can fill out this form or email [email protected].