Dataverse File Capacity Isolated from Fabric: Clearing Up the Confusion
- aferencz21
- Aug 26
- 2 min read
As organizations increasingly adopt Microsoft Fabric alongside Power Platform tools like Power Apps, Dynamics 365, and Copilot Studio, a common point of confusion has emerged: Does upgrading Fabric capacity affect Dataverse File storage limits?
The short answer is no, and here’s why.
Understanding the Two Worlds
Dataverse File Capacity
Dataverse File capacity is part of the Power Platform licensing model. It governs storage for:
Attachments
Notes
Images
Other file-based data stored in Dataverse tables
This capacity is consumed by apps like Power Apps, Dynamics 365, and Copilot Studio, and is managed through Power Platform entitlements, not Azure or Fabric SKUs.
Microsoft Fabric Capacity
Fabric is a separate Azure-based analytics platform built around OneLake for unified data storage and Fabric SKUs (such as F2, F4, F64) for compute. It powers workloads like:
Power BI
Data Engineering
Data Science
Real-time Analytics
Copilot experiences in Fabric
Fabric capacity is purchased and scaled independently from Power Platform licensing.
No Shared Quota or Billing Overlap
Even if your organization uses both platforms, Dataverse File capacity and Fabric capacity are completely isolated. There is:
No shared storage quota
No billing crossover
No automatic offloading of Dataverse files into OneLake
This means that upgrading your Fabric SKU (for example, from F2 to F4) will not impact your Dataverse File capacity limits or usage.
Where Confusion Might Arise
Microsoft offers a “Link to Fabric” feature that allows you to stream Dataverse data into a Fabric Lakehouse for analytics. While powerful, this feature:
Replicates data into Fabric
Does not reduce Dataverse storage usage
Is intended for analytics, not storage optimization
Overall, Dataverse File capacity and Microsoft Fabric capacity share the same cloud but serve different worlds. Dataverse storage, tied to Power Platform licensing, handles files for apps like Power Apps, Dynamics 365, and Copilot Studio. Fabric capacity, managed via Azure SKUs and OneLake, powers analytics for Power BI, Copilot in Fabric, and data pipelines. They do not overlap in storage or billing, so upgrading Fabric will not fix Dataverse limits. “Link to Fabric” only replicates data for analytics; Dataverse still pays the bill. Scaling Fabric to solve Dataverse issues is like buying a bigger monitor to fix Wi-Fi (optimistic, but ineffective).