Backup - OneDrive Issues

badrobot · Mar 2, 2024

Hazel123 said:
Apparently there's a new generation of One Drive coming - that works with Co Pilot. So maybe you can ask Co Pilot to reinstate any deleted files or find them.

Unveiling the Next Generation of OneDrive

The next generation of OneDrive is here with effortless file management, advanced security and governance, and new Copilot in OneDrive skills on the way.

techcommunity.microsoft.com

It's the version we use in the office integrated with Outlook, Teams, MS 365 and Share Point. It is for corporate environment.

Hazel123 · Mar 2, 2024

Thanks for explaining.

Winuser · Mar 2, 2024

Edwin said:
Stop Backup should mean, stop making copies of my stuff. Period.

I totally agree. Stop Backup should mean stop backup. Nothing should be moved or deleted. I look in OneDrive settings and backup is turned on for my documents and pictures.

Winuser · Mar 2, 2024

I still feel that MS is wrong for putting a user's files on OneDrive without asking the user first.

pparks1 · Mar 3, 2024

Hazel123 said:
So is the default set up for One Drive set up that files wouldn't disappear from the computer if they delete them in One Drive? ie - would you actively have to change the settings for the issues to occur? It doesn't sound like it, based on Edwin's post.

I'd like to know the best set up myself, so the teenager doesn't lose all his college work. As I doubt he'll take my advice to uninstall it!

No, one drive is a sync. So files saved in c:\users\username\onedrive\documents will go to one drive in the cloud. Later, if your son were to access the files from the cloud and make an edit to the file in the cloud, that file would sync to his computer. Thus, the copy of the file is stored in 2 places.

If your son, goes to the cloud and deletes the file....that deletion will then also occur on the local computer. And if your son were to delete the file locally it would also delete from the cloud. There is however a recycle bin locally and in the cloud. And there is also file revision on the file in the cloud.

Onedrive is a sync and mirror, it's not a backup in the sense that it keeps all the files for all times in the cloud.

To be honest, I think for a college kid having that extra copy in the cloud would be 100% a good thing. Why would you not want him to have a duplicate copy of all of his school work? I mean sure he can backup on a regular cadence to an external drive. But what if he hasn't backed up in say 3 days because he was busy or forgot and then his hard drive crashed. Well, then his work for the past three days would be lost. If on the other hand his work was on the surface pro and also synced to the cloud in real time....he would lose none of his files . Or let's say he had his surface pro and his external drive in a backpack together and somebody stole the back pack...you just lose both copies of the data. If one of those copies was in onedeive, this wouldn't be an issue. Let's say your son has a paper due at midnight, but he forgot to turn it in. He went to a friend's house and at 11:00 he remembers, omg I forgot to turn in my assignment. Well, as long as he has access to any device with a web browser he can access the file from the cloud and submit it to the class without physically having access to his computer.

I personally think you telling him to flat out uninstall it and don't use it, would be a real disservice to the kid. IMHO, terrible advice.

Using this is simple. If you have a file and you want it local and on the cloud, save it to onedrive\documents. If you don't want it on the cloud, literally save it anywhere other than c:\users\username\onedrive\

This application is not rocket science. It's really easy. People here having issues were toggling things like "backup" on and off, or hiding folders from view and then surprised with how it works. If you don't do this wacky stuff and just use it by saving files and folders to thst onedrive folder, I think you will find it drop dead simple. That's the way Trader Gary and I have used this for years and we swear by it.

pparks1 · Mar 3, 2024

Winuser said:
I totally agree. Stop Backup should mean stop backup. Nothing should be moved or deleted. I look in OneDrive settings and backup is turned on for my documents and pictures.

The way that backup was implemented was dumb. Effectively, if you used your computer for quite a while and saved everything to c:\users\username\documents, and then wanted to ensure those files were "included" with onedrive, when you turn on the backup option, Windows moves your files from c:\users\username\documents to the c:\users\username\onedrive\documents folder. That's really all it does. You could have 100% did the same thing by cutting and pasting your files in windows file explorer yourself.

After turning on the backup option, if you later saved a file to c:\users\username\documents....it doesn't magically get moved for you to onedrive. Nope, it only gets moved when you turn on the feature. The file would have had to existed prior to enabling the feature, for it to be moved by turning on the feature. It doesn't work real time and make sure you aren't accidentally saving in the non one drive protected folder. It let's you save to the local documents folder and is hence not backing up crap.

The feature should have been called "move your existing data to OneDrive". That's all it does.

I say just skip it all, save files directly to c:\users\username\onedrive\ if you want them on one drive and you may find things just work exactly as you would expect. Don't bother with the backup feature, copy your files to onedrive manually.

Dru2 · Mar 3, 2024

Winuser said:
I still feel that MS is wrong for putting a user's files on OneDrive without asking the user first.

In my hard defense of OneDrive, I will concede to this ^^^^

I do think OneDrive should be defaulted to off until if and when the end user decides to use it. I won't argue against the above.

Winuser · Mar 3, 2024

Dru2 said:
In my hard defense of OneDrive, I will concede to this ^^^^

I do think OneDrive should be defaulted to off until if and when the end user decides to use it. I won't argue against the above.

Don't get me wrong, OneDrive is great and I'm glad MS offers us the online storage. OneDrive is one of the reasons I subscribe to Microsoft 365. I use it for my Documents and Pictures. I have also created folders on OneDrive for other files I feel I need saved online. MS just need to learn how to ask before placing a users personal files online.

Hazel123 · Mar 3, 2024

pparks1 said:
No, one drive is a sync. So files saved in c:\users\username\onedrive\documents will go to one drive in the cloud. Later, if your son were to access the files from the cloud and make an edit to the file in the cloud, that file would sync to his computer. Thus, the copy of the file is stored in 2 places.

If your son, goes to the cloud and deletes the file....that deletion will then also occur on the local computer. And if your son were to delete the file locally it would also delete from the cloud. There is however a recycle bin locally and in the cloud. And there is also file revision on the file in the cloud.

Onedrive is a sync and mirror, it's not a backup in the sense that it keeps all the files for all times in the cloud.

To be honest, I think for a college kid having that extra copy in the cloud would be 100% a good thing. Why would you not want him to have a duplicate copy of all of his school work? I mean sure he can backup on a regular cadence to an external drive. But what if he hasn't backed up in say 3 days because he was busy or forgot and then his hard drive crashed. Well, then his work for the past three days would be lost. If on the other hand his work was on the surface pro and also synced to the cloud in real time....he would lose none of his files . Or let's say he had his surface pro and his external drive in a backpack together and somebody stole the back pack...you just lose both copies of the data. If one of those copies was in onedeive, this wouldn't be an issue. Let's say your son has a paper due at midnight, but he forgot to turn it in. He went to a friend's house and at 11:00 he remembers, omg I forgot to turn in my assignment. Well, as long as he has access to any device with a web browser he can access the file from the cloud and submit it to the class without physically having access to his computer.

I personally think you telling him to flat out uninstall it and don't use it, would be a real disservice to the kid. IMHO, terrible advice.

Using this is simple. If you have a file and you want it local and on the cloud, save it to onedrive\documents. If you don't want it on the cloud, literally save it anywhere other than c:\users\username\onedrive\

This application is not rocket science. It's really easy. People here having issues were toggling things like "backup" on and off, or hiding folders from view and then surprised with how it works. If you don't do this wacky stuff and just use it by saving files and folders to thst onedrive folder, I think you will find it drop dead simple. That's the way Trader Gary and I have used this for years and we swear by it.

Point taken but I have an idrive account which can be used on multiple computers so had been planning to have him install that. That is actually back up. If he loses anything he can download it from the cloud again or even onto a different computer. The difference is, if he deletes anything in the cloud back up, it wont affect anything installed on the computer.

However idrive doesn’t backup one drive unless the files are in both places so it would be better to keep it simple and just have idrive. I don’t think having both is necessary. The college is also using Google based everything.

Dru2 · Mar 3, 2024

pparks1 said:
To be honest, I think for a college kid having that extra copy in the cloud would be 100% a good thing. Why would you not want him to have a duplicate copy of all of his school work? I mean sure he can backup on a regular cadence to an external drive. But what if he hasn't backed up in say 3 days because he was busy or forgot and then his hard drive crashed. Well, then his work for the past three days would be lost. If on the other hand his work was on the surface pro and also synced to the cloud in real time....he would lose none of his files . Or let's say he had his surface pro and his external drive in a backpack together and somebody stole the back pack...you just lose both copies of the data. If one of those copies was in onedeive, this wouldn't be an issue. Let's say your son has a paper due at midnight, but he forgot to turn it in. He went to a friend's house and at 11:00 he remembers, omg I forgot to turn in my assignment. Well, as long as he has access to any device with a web browser he can access the file from the cloud and submit it to the class without physically having access to his computer.

I personally think you telling him to flat out uninstall it and don't use it, would be a real disservice to the kid. IMHO, terrible advice.

When I was going to school for my Computer Information Systems degree, that's when I really found out how valuable OneDrive was. Having a laptop in the class worked wonders where I would take notes and/or do my class projects and drop the info in OneDrive. When I got home, and worked from my desktop, those files would be in the OneDrive folder there. Never even needed to touch the laptop.

If I needed to correct something or do a project, I'd do it from the desktop, and when I went to class the next day with my laptop, the files, corrections, and projects would be there. That's when I knew how valuable OneDrive was.

Today, I don't even need a phone with lots of storage space because I can simply access stuff from the OneDrive app on the phone, instead of having the files locally stored. Yeah, I have certain critical info stored on the phone, but for the most part, I access data via cloud services.

Speaking of saving storage space, as a side note, I've ripped my entire CD collection (2800 CDs) to my cloud-based NAS, and thus I can simply access my music library from my phone via Plexamp which gets the files from my cloud-based NAS (WD PR4100). None of my music files are stored on my phone... and thus no storage space is used there. As long as I have internet/phone service I can listen to my music. I've taken 7-hour trips listening to my collection and never lost connection.

Point here is cloud storage can save tons of space on local devices by having the files stored in the cloud instead of a local device. And yes, those files are also backed up locally.

Anyway, I know many fear the Cloud (and thus the majority of hate for OneDrive), but in today's world, it really does have benefits. And like everything else in the world, there is choice - here choice of what you store in the cloud.

Also, many may not know, but OneDrive also has a Vault folder inside the OneDrive folder - this is a secure password protected folder you setup for sensitive information you might wish to store in OneDrive but want a little more security. And though the folder is in OneDrive, you will still have to provide a pin to access it - In other words simply signing into OneDrive does not grant access to the Vault folder.

Will this put the fear mongers and conspiracy theorists at ease... probably not; but for the rational, perhaps.

My two cents.

TraderGary · Mar 3, 2024

Winuser said:
I still feel that MS is wrong for putting a user's files on OneDrive without asking the user first.

As a longtime OneDrive user, I too was dismayed to see how this was done!

Dru2 · Mar 3, 2024

Winuser said:
Don't get me wrong, OneDrive is great and I'm glad MS offers us the online storage. OneDrive is one of the reasons I subscribe to Microsoft 365. I use it for my Documents and Pictures. I have also created folders on OneDrive for other files I feel I need saved online. MS just need to learn how to ask before placing a users personal files online.

Again, as a diehard OneDrive defender, you've said nothing I can disagree with.

Microsoft does need to give end users a choice here, not force it upon them. No arguments there

Winuser · Mar 3, 2024

Dru2 said:
Again, as a diehard OneDrive defender, you've said nothing I can disagree with.

Microsoft does need to give end users a choice here, not force it upon them. No arguments there

I remember when OneDrive was first released. MS gave user so much free space that a number of users took advantage of it and was storing large media content on it.

cereberus · Mar 3, 2024

Winuser said:
I remember when OneDrive was first released. MS gave user so much free space that a number of users took advantage of it and was storing large media content on it.

Even when they bought in limits, you could get 15 GB plus up to 15 GB bonus space for camera storage.

I am entitled to 30GB free and oddly enough, it does not care if it is a single 30 GB file (tested it with a 25 GB Macrium Reflect image).

Having said that I also get 1 TB free with MS 365 (plus 30 GB).

But you are right, some people were storing literally 10s/100s of TB when it first came out. MS had to do something of course - a few greedy persons spoiled it for the rest of us.

Dru2 · Mar 3, 2024

Winuser said:
I remember when OneDrive was first released. MS gave user so much free space that a number of users took advantage of it and was storing large media content on it.

Yeah, I remember that. Also remember getting notified by Microsoft that they were going to cap things because people were getting stupid with storing stuff. I remember this article where Microsoft stated...

a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings". Its blog post went on to explain that "in some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average"

LOL - give an inch and some will take miles

My comment about the decision MS Downgrades free Onedrive storage, ends unlimited for Office 365 (You're in that thread too

).

Winuser · Mar 3, 2024

Dru2 said:
My comment about the decision MS Downgrades free Onedrive storage, ends unlimited for Office 365 (You're in that thread too ).

That brings back some memories.

TraderGary · Mar 3, 2024

I was one of the first to use OneDrive back in 2007 (called SkyDrive back then) and I certainly do recall when OneDrive storage was unlimited, and a few spoiled it for the rest of us.

Even today with my 1 TB of cloud OneDrive I have with Microsoft 365, I’m only using 204.5 GB of my 1 TB. That’s only about 20% of my available 1 TB. When I look at what I’m storing, it’s still quite a bit.

60,365 Photos
5,206 Documents
1,108 Music Files
149 PDF files

I decided to go paperless a couple of decades ago and when I buy a new device, I download the PDF documentation and throw any paper docs away. I love having all my documentation for everything readily available everywhere on OneDrive. I even have OneDrive available on my smartphone. I can’t tell you how many times that’s been invaluable.

I bought a laser printer a couple of decades ago and I’m still on the introductory cartridge. That’s how much I print now that I’ve essentially gone paperless. I might even have saved a few trees.

ThrashZone · Mar 3, 2024

Winuser said:
I remember when OneDrive was first released. MS gave user so much free space that a number of users took advantage of it and was storing large media content on it.

Hi,
With that MS giveth and then taketh away typical MS policy
Get people to rely on free storage/... and warn them all because it will be deleted tomorrow :lmao:

Edwin · Mar 3, 2024

Installed MobiDrive today, similar to OneDrive...,
20GB free, 200MB max file size, max 30 days for deleted files

Doesn't sync User directories, matter of fact, it doesn't let you, you have to create the directories.
Proton is similar.

ThrashZone · Mar 3, 2024

Edwin said:
Installed MobiDrive today, similar to OneDrive...,
20GB free, 200MB max file size, max 30 days for deleted files
Doesn't sync User directories, matter of fact, it doesn't let you, you have to create the directories.

Hi,
Pretty useless for any type of media like movies/ tv series.
But then again this stuff would eat through 15gb onedrive pretty fast hehe