Migrating personal network share to OneDrive...whys and wherefores

[BJG]

We're starting to look at migrating users' personal network folders to OneDrive. I've just enabled it for myself. Being old-school, I'm currently thinking, hmm, not sure about this download/sync business, I quite liked just opening files instantly from the server.

 

I can see the benefits from an IT admin point of view, and with most users here now working from home it seems to make sense and be the way forward. I'm not fully aware of the benefits from a user perspective yet though. Some people in the IT Dept are in favour, some are more sceptical. I'd be interested to know folk here have done this, are planning to do it, and not planning to do it, and why...

[Tefters]

In the middle of doing it.

 

Access from anywhere, anytime and completely free online.

 

Especially useful if using other devices such as Mac's, Tablets, phones etc...

 

Used in conjunction with Teams and SharePoint online it's a huge win.

 

In short - It's the future, need to start looking at IT differently, old school network drives and my documents folders are a thing of the past.

 

I could start throwing out buzz words like Agile, Cloud and SaSS if you want to get the attention of clueless suits for buy-in.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Tefters

[DalekSec]

User benefits:

 

Access it from anywhere with an internet connection

Free's up space on your device with only files downloaded used regally, rest are there but downloaded when first opened.

Ability to easily share files and folders

Auto-Save and change history, can go back to versions from years ago let alone minutes, compared to DPM or other backups that are twice daily (or w/e your setup is) and take longer to recover

[Boredguy]

We moved all staff and students home drives to One Drive back during the pandemic as it meant users could access resources anywhere at anytime without having to connect back in to school to download files via the Home Access Plus site.

It's improved file availability for users as they can easily recover a file/folder they have deleted instantly. If it's an office document they have revision history and can open it via a browser on any device.

 

Plus it saves on our onsite file storage since all users have 1TB on OneDrive.

 

Moving was easy using the SharePoint Migration Tool (used to be Mover.io) and we've done the same now for staff and students at other schools in the Trust

[jmak]

Most stuff for most users opens quicker using OneDrive/SharePoint than it did from the file server. Most users open the same files repeatedly and that's stored locally.