Understanding limits of Power BI

[Anonymous]

Hi Team,

Recently I uploaded different files of ~650 MB, together the size was ~12 GB. I was still able to refresh my app and update it. I want to understand as a premium user does the 10 GB limit is on a single file or is it for all the files combined in a workspace should not exceed 10 Gb limitation? Also, what is the limit on refresh for a single file? For example if I upload a single file of 10 GB in a workspace can I refresh my app using it?

Also, how do I check the what is the storage usage that is being used for my workspace? I have attached the screenshot for my current workspace, want to know what does it signify given I have uploaded many files of ~650 MB, together for which the size is more than 10 GB but still the storage usage says 0, not able to understand it.

@PowerBI 

Thanks

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I created a support ticket to Power Bi support team, they confirmed that under Preimum per user you can go till 10 GB in the workspace where you don't need to pay anything as a MSFT employee but the size of single file for refresh cannot go beyong 2 GB and this limit is not only for Preimum per user but even if you upgrade to embedded or Azure Subscription based workspace (in this you can increase the workspace size to 100 GB or 400 GB but not single file limitation in a workspace). This is the limit which power bi team has recently imposed and is not captured anywhere else in the document. So the size limit for a single file in a workspace cannot exceed 2 GB under any circumstances.

I even tested it by adding more data to my power bi file using Power BI desktop and it didn't allowed me to save if the file size exeeded 2 GB.

[ibarrau]

Hi, you can compare features for each licence in here:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/es-es/pricing/

There you can find data about refreshes and size limits.

You can check the storage going to the Workspace to check, then click on the settings icon (top right corner) and then "Manage group storage".

I hope that helps,

[Anonymous]

I went over "Manage group storage" for which I have attached the screenshot. In the screenshot you can see that it shows 0 GB used out of 10 GB given I uploaded files for which the combined size is > 10GB. That's why I wanted to understand does the limitation of 10 GB is at the single file level or is the at the workspace level.

I have also went over this thread - Solved: Power BI Size Limitation / Maximum - Microsoft Power BI Community where it states that Power BI for premium user supports 10 GB upload file limit and 12 GB refresh limit for that single file. But this document - Pricing & Product Comparison | Microsoft Power BI says that Model size limit can go till 100 GB for Premium user. Not sure which one is correct as my workspaceis showing 0 GB used out of only 10 GB as a premium user.

Documentations are not very helpful.

[v-easonf-msft]

Hi, @Anonymous 

The total storage limit is 100 TB. The model size (dataset) limit is 100 GB for PPU.

But need to noticed that 100 GB isn’t really 100 GB. A dataset that is loaded into memory will:

• Expand from its disk size
• It will need auxiliary data structures – e.g. as users connect they need more memory
• Data refreshes (particularly a full refresh) would require double the memory – so maybe you can only use 40 GB datasets on a 100 GB memory size
• Etc…

These behaviors are not new – they apply to AAS and to Premium Gen1.

It's important to understand that 100 GB SKU size doesn’t mean that each dataset can actually reach a size of 100 GB. But the great thing about PPU and Premium Gen2 is that you can actually have more than one of these larger datasets loaded up – and in reality the total size of the datasets can exceed the SKU size. E.g. maybe you have 5 datasets of size 30 GB, and they can all be loaded up at the same time.

Please check the latest link, some documents may refer to the PPU (in preview).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/admin/service-premium-per-user-faq 

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Eason