Is OneDrive actually of any use?

Ghot · Dec 25, 2023

There, I've encrypted my Top Secret Plans. So I'm safe now, right?

zebal · Dec 25, 2023

@Ghot
If you're not activist or in opposition or otherwise don't step on foot of your government you have nothing to worry about :thumbsup:

Some people however like various anti-establishment activists can't simply publicly act due to a fear and need to use internet to carry out their plans, they can't afford not using computer to store secrets.
I'm also sure a lot of activists are not PC experts

BrianInEngland · Dec 25, 2023

pparks1 said:
I've read through the various posts. I don't have any problems with Sync speed with my OneDrive folder. They are updated in the cloud within seconds.

I also put my OneDrive folder on my data drive, in this case D:\onedrive. I don't use symlinks to my files. I have My Documents, My Desktop and My Pictures all on D:\OneDrive. I have the location set on these folders to D:\OneDrive\Documents, D:\OneDrive\Desktop, and D:\OneDrive\Pictures respectively.

Yeah, i find it tremendously useful. I don't put absolutely everything on OneDrive. And sensitive things go into the Personal Vault.

Agreed.

The forced issue is an issue. On the flipside, I can understand why MS does this for the less savvy users. For average joe's, the fact that files end up on OneDrive automagically is great for those who wouldn't have figured out how to do it. Their computer dies and they get another one and many just assume they lost their stuff, they log back onto their new computer and like magic, their stuff is back.

Maybe they could add a method for those of us who are sophisticated during setup to somehow acknowledge that we know what we are doing and we choose to go without OneDrive. Then those who didn't want it, don't have to use it.

Like you I also have my User folders (Docs, Pictures, Music) set to OneDrive as default save location

cereberus · Dec 25, 2023

Haydon said:
You forgot upside down

inside out?

Winuser · Dec 25, 2023

Ghot said:
Q: Is OneDrive actually of any use?

A: No. Use backup software.

Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper and Hasleo Backup Suite - GUIDES

How to use backup software... 1. When everything is working perfectly... make a full Windows backup. 2. Then, if something breaks... restore from the latest backup. 3. Then... try "whatever you were doing" a different way. If it still breaks Windows, then... go to step #2. 4. Repeat...

www.elevenforum.com

View attachment 82275

Merry Christmas.

It depends on what you want to use it for. If one just needs to backup files then somewhat I agree that OneDrive isn't needed. I use to acces my photos and documents from any and all of my devices even if I'm not at home. I also have my cell phone setup to upload my photos to OneDrive. I'm not going to say it's perfect but I will say MS is constantly improving it. I put it in the category of it being a blessing for those who need it and know how to use to trash for those who don't need it or understand how to use it. I will say that MS is wrong for defaulting OneDrive as the default location for User Folders on new installs. It should be up to the user to decide and not MS.

Haydon · Dec 25, 2023

cereberus said:
inside out?

I have 3 cloud storages:

1. OneDrive
2. Google Drive
3. Adobe Creative Cloud.

I got all 3 of them for free (or to be more precise, I got each one of them as part of a bigger package) I use none of them. 2 and 3 are pretty benign, but 1 took quite a bit of inside out effort to tame

Edwin · Dec 25, 2023

Haydon said:
I have 3 cloud storages...

I still have access to approximately a dozen cloud storages..., I never use 'em, there's nuthin in 'em!

Henceforth the overabundance of useless passwords that I should keep written down somewhere! :zany:

Haydon · Dec 25, 2023

About a decade ago, it dawned on me that I needed to consolidate my Internet assets. The first 50% to get rid of was easy. The next 25% was already a bit harder. The subsequent 10% was hard. I am still at work to get rid of more.

The objective is not just to retain those items of high utilitarian value. It's also about rounding out and adding to the overall 'painting', because the Internet changes pretty fast.

CSharpDev · Dec 26, 2023

zebal said:
@fixer
The only problem with OneDrive is a ton of negative comments you can find about it online.

I find OneDrive very useful and no amount of additional backup hard drives is enough to render OneDrive useless.
You only need not forget about privacy, any files you care about in terms of privacy, before you put them into OneDrive should be encrypted to ensure nobody except you can read them.

OneDrive gives you 5GB's for free, that's a lot of storage if you use it wisely.

Imagine you have 10 backup hard drives in your house, ex. if one dies you have another one and you might think that this way there is no way lose your data.
Now image your house catches fire and render all your 10 hard drives useless!
The point is that the fire won't catch Microsoft servers lol, you just enter password and get your data back.

You know I wonder if OneDrive, Google Drive are so insecure, how come every enterprise I have ever worked for uses/used them? OneDrive For Business, mind you, but still. Along with Sharepoint... lol.

pparks1 · Dec 27, 2023

Yep, my enterprise is using onedrive. And we are fintech and take security extremely seriously.

Ghot · Dec 27, 2023

Winuser said:
It depends on what you want to use it for. If one just needs to backup files then somewhat I agree that OneDrive isn't needed. I use to acces my photos and documents from any and all of my devices even if I'm not at home. I also have my cell phone setup to upload my photos to OneDrive. I'm not going to say it's perfect but I will say MS is constantly improving it. I put it in the category of it being a blessing for those who need it and know how to use to trash for those who don't need it or understand how to use it. I will say that MS is wrong for defaulting OneDrive as the default location for User Folders on new installs. It should be up to the user to decide and not MS.

For syncing, you almost have to use cloud storage. But I don't like or use sync... either.

If one device has an issue, I damn sure don't want to sync that issue to another device.
I use the "separate all the food on the plate" method in my computing.

PGHammer · Dec 27, 2023

I use OneDrive - and Google Cloud, my other heavily-used cloud storage - for anything that I can either access or share among multiple sources - such as tax or medical records - along with audio and video files (for the same reasons) - especially mobile access.

jimbo45 · Dec 27, 2023

One Drive works perfectly for me -- you need to have a decent Internet and a reasonable allocation of storage -- you can get a decent amount without having to buy or have an office/365 subscription as you can purchase as a private individual decent storage deals really cheaply.

If you don't like Microsoft then Googledrive is another alternative but if you use Windows mainly the integration of one drive with windows is fine.

And if you use Linux regularly as your main OS there's an active Free product on github which works perfectly too. I was sceptical originally about using any type of cloud services but things have moved on a lot since, Internet, reliability and volume allowance make these services really OK - and almost mandatory these days.

For Linux users -- or try on a Linux VM : One Drive for Linux :

OneDrive Client for Linux

A free Microsoft OneDrive Client for Linux, which supports OneDrive Personal, OneDrive for Business, OneDrive for Office365 and Sharepoint, and fully supports Azure National Cloud Deployments. This powerful and highly configurable OneDrive Client for Linux is simple to use and runs on all major...

abraunegg.github.io

Cheers
jimbo

Stigg · Dec 27, 2023

OneDrive works very well for me and my family. We have an Office 365 account that gives us a terabyte of data storage for me, plus five other family members. It works very well for PC and phone data.

PurSpyk!! · Dec 27, 2023

Never had a problem with OneDrive, but I use it mostly for document storage, which I manually save to OneDrive. Its also used as my music backup, nice to have the 1TB storage with my Microsoft 365 subscription

BrianInEngland · Dec 27, 2023

PurSpyk!! said:
Never had a problem with OneDrive, but I use it mostly for document storage, which I manually save to OneDrive. Its also used as my music backup, nice to have the 1TB storage with my Microsoft 365 subscription

100% this, I pay for a 365 subscription and share it with family. I made a shared folder we can all access, makes it so easy to share photos etc

jimbo45 · Dec 27, 2023

If you DON'T have office/365 you can get 100GB of storage for €2.00 a month or equiv in your currency or €20 a year. That's plenty for me -- but you can buy bigger storage plans.

Cheers
jimbo

Winuser · Dec 27, 2023

Ghot said:
For syncing, you almost have to use cloud storage. But I don't like or use sync... either.

If one device has an issue, I damn sure don't want to sync that issue to another device.
I use the "separate all the food on the plate" method in my computing.

I use the even though my documents and photos are stored on OneDrive I still have them backed up locally method.

pparks1 · Dec 27, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
100% this, I pay for a 365 subscription and share it with family. I made a shared folder we can all access, makes it so easy to share photos etc

Yeah same here. When I was between jobs in 2016 and 2017 I got a subscription to Office 365. Honestly been a fantastic investment, the $99 a year has been a no-brainer.

4 people in my immediate family and we all use our OneDrive space as the backup location for our cell phone pics and videos. It just immediately syncs to the cloud, so never a concern about space usage on our devices, or fear of losing or damaging our phones.

I also share it with my dad.

Thus for $99 a year, we have up to 5TB of space in use. (not using the 6th account). As an added bonus, I have access to Microsoft Office with this subscription. That's the way I look at this account, it's my OneDrive account that comes with Office for free.

PurSpyk!! · Dec 27, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
100% this, I pay for a 365 subscription and share it with family. I made a shared folder we can all access, makes it so easy to share photos etc

Yes, 1tb each for 6 people is a really good deal