July 1, 2021 is tomorrow and, as previously announced by Microsoft, the new Dynamics 365 Business Central database capacity changes will start be applied.
If you check the Dynamics 365 Business Central Admin center page, storage capacity usage of Business Central is represented by Database on the Capacity page.
With tne new policies starting July 1, 2021, Business Central customers can use up to 80 GB of database storage capacity across all their environments (production and sandbox) as default. Then, customers can acquire additional storage capacity based on the number of Business Central licenses they own:
- Premium license type: 3 GB of additional storage per each license
- Essential license type: 2 GB of additional storage per each license
- Device license type: 1 GB of additional storage per each license
Every additional production environment purchased by the customer also increases tenant-wide database capacity quota by 4 GB.
If customers need more space, there’s an option to purchase extra database capacity as an add-on to their existing Business Central subscriptions through their reselling CSP partner by using the following add-ons:
- Dynamics 365 Business Central Database Capacity (1 GB)
- Dynamics 365 Business Central Database Capacity (100 GB)
- Dynamics 365 Business Central Database Capacity Overage (1 GB): a lower-priced add-on only available for the customers who purchased at least one Dynamics 365 Business Central Database Capacity (100 GB) add-on.
- Dynamics 365 Business Central Additional Environment Add-on
But there’s also an important note to keep in mind:
Starting July 1, 2021, along with introduction of lower-priced capacity add-ons and per-license capacity quota extensions, the capacity occupied by the files or Blob data stored in the Business Central database (the content of the Tenant Media and Tenant Media Thumbnails tables) is counted towards the overall database storage capacity of the customer tenant.
What does that mean, apart from the costing perspective?
That you should start thinking on avoiding using Blobs and storing files into your Dynamics 365 Business Central database. There are lots of storage options for the SaaS environment (like Azure Blob Storage for example) that are cheaper and performant. Start using them.
Exceeding the paid database storage limit won’t interrupt transaction processing within the existing environments. Once the capacity limits are exceeded, the customers won’t be able to create new environments or copy their existing environments until the storage used by the existing environments is decreased to fit the quota or additional capacity is purchased.
Stefano Demiliani 
Hi Stefano.
We have already started using Azure Blob Storage as a repository for additional files related to BC entities. There are several issues we have had to address, such as price, security, and file-entity coordination, the latter of which is difficult to resolve if the customer request and apply a database restore, for example.
The question we would like to ask you is: do you know if Microsoft is planning to implement an external storage system as an option, where it could solve problems like file-entity coordination? Or will the only options be to use the available database space or to do it on our own, as is our case?
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Sharepoint and OneDrive easy integration is on the roadmap, Blob Storage is a long term plan. Not understood what you mean with “file entity coordination”, sorry…
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Hi Stefano,
I try to explain it with an hypothetical scenario. During 30 days you store, change and even delete documents related to entities in Business Central (sales orders, items, whatever…). Imagine that the content of some of those documents is not static, but it is changed by the user to reflect what happens during those 15 days accordingly with the state of the entities (some modifications in the an item related document, or the sales order, etc.). At the same time some new documents can be added and some others deleted.
Then, if after 30 days the user requests a restore of the database, some documents in the external storage will be no longer coordinate with the state of the restored database. It could be a non-critical issue, but it is a pain in the neck you have to cope with if your file storage is not in the same database. Backup policies for the external storage could help, of course, but then you have to implement them…
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Now I understand thanks. Yes, if you physically delete the external file and then restore the db to a older point in time, you can have broken links.
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Hello,
In the article, it is written “customers can acquire additional storage capacity based on the number of Business Central licenses they own”. Are the additional GBs free of charge ? If not, where can I found the price of the additional storage ?
Thanks
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No there’s a monthly fee for additional capacity. You can acquire blocks of 1 GB or 100 GB.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/administration/tenant-admin-center-capacity
For more information about all the offers, see the Dynamics 365 Licensing Deck and the Dynamics 365 Licensing FAQ (valid partner credentials required).
https://mbs2.microsoft.com/fileexchange/?fileID=7d3143e1-2104-4a6b-83b3-0f57eb7ae432
https://mbs2.microsoft.com/fileexchange/?fileID=f61bfc11-8f0c-4d87-9996-ea531d16bf43
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