Today we temporarily removed the Starter Lifetime Plan from availability.
This does not affect anyone who already has a Starter Lifetime plan. Nothing is being taken away, and your plans remain active as usual.
Why we’re doing this
Over the last weeks a few factors came together in a way we didn’t fully expect:
- Sustained high usage after Black Friday
Black Friday demand exceeded our initial planning, and we’re still seeing unusually high, ongoing upload and download activity. - High internal traffic due to stabilization and rebalancing work
After a short disturbance a few weeks ago, we prioritized additional stability work. Part of that includes internal rebalancing and background operations that create extra load while they run. - Longer lead times on infrastructure expansion
The current server and storage hardware market has become harder to scale quickly. Availability is limited and delivery times are longer than what we were used to planning with.
Context (why hardware is tight right now): The broader data center build-out for accelerated computing has pushed demand sharply higher for GPU platforms and the components they rely on, with large buyers reserving manufacturing capacity far in advance. That reduces “on the spot” availability and can stretch lead times even for more standard server and storage deployments, because the same OEMs and upstream supply chains serve both. In practice, this often means longer queues for server parts and less flexibility to scale quickly on short notice.
Individually, none of these would be a big deal. Combined, they increase pressure on capacity and internal throughput. This is not about anything serious, it is simply a precautionary measure and part of responsible, long term resource management given the current market situation.
We decided to pause new Starter Lifetime purchases for now to keep performance and reliability where it should be for everyone who already depends on Filen every day.
What this means for existing users
To be very clear:
- All existing (Starter) Lifetime plans remain fully active
- Your data is safe, unaffected and nothing will change for you
- There is no change to encryption, privacy, or account access
- This is purely about new lifetime purchases and responsible capacity planning
When will it be back?
As soon as our next infrastructure expansions are fully deployed and our internal load levels are back in a comfortable range, we’ll make the Starter Lifetime plan available again. Even though we can’t provide an exact ETA, we expect it will be a matter of weeks, not months.
We will communicate updates through the Hub (and our social media). Transparency matters to us, and we’d rather be clear now than surprise anyone later.
Thank you for your understanding and for supporting Filen.
-Team Filen.
