Dire onedrive performance

[Oaktech]

Anyone else having massive issues with the performance of the OneDrive client?

 

For a couple of weeks now every new device that a user sets up with sharepoint library sync is taking whole days to sync?

 

We have an average of 3 libraries per user which range in size between 250,000 and 750,000 total items depending on role. Previously we gave an estimate to the staff of around an hour to complete the initial sync. I've got 3 laptops and my own desktop that have been syncing solidly for over 2 days now.

 

Nothing has changed in terms of our settings but looking at the release list it may have corresponded with the release of Version 24.192.0923.0006 (October 17, 2024) or Version 24.196.0929.0005 (October 21, 2024).

 

Any ideas?

Edited November 8, 2024 by Oaktech

[CHiLL]

My colleague told me that he'd read somewhere that at least for SharePoint sites syncing in OneDrive, each site should not contain more than 5000 items to maintain performance. As we are in the middle of a slow transition to SharePoint and syncing via the OneDrive client, we have found that when we recreated the staff shared drive caused so many performance issues as the OneDrive client was trying to parse all the items when a user logged in. Instead we are trying to create a site per department/office/role, etc and only giving the necessary people access to the relevant sites. That way it massively limits the amount of files a user needs to sync or at least parse the metadata for.

 

I don't know if that is entirely true or even if it applies in your situation, but it could be food for thought.

[thimon]

For libraries of that size OneDrive will struggle, the time you are quoting sounds about right. We migrated to OneDrive and SharePoint just before COVID, we didn’t sanitise our data and just dumped everything in a SharePoint library, something you shouldn’t really do. A work around is using a solution like CloudDriveMapper, which we use. It’s worth every penny, mapping SharePoint libraries as mapped devices. Their new v3 client is super fast!

[Oaktech]

My colleague told me that he'd read somewhere that at least for SharePoint sites syncing in OneDrive, each site should not contain more than 5000 items to maintain performance. As we are in the middle of a slow transition to SharePoint and syncing via the OneDrive client, we have found that when we recreated the staff shared drive caused so many performance issues as the OneDrive client was trying to parse all the items when a user logged in. Instead we are trying to create a site per department/office/role, etc and only giving the necessary people access to the relevant sites. That way it massively limits the amount of files a user needs to sync or at least parse the metadata for.

 

I don't know if that is entirely true or even if it applies in your situation, but it could be food for thought.

 

For libraries of that size OneDrive will struggle, the time you are quoting sounds about right. We migrated to OneDrive and SharePoint just before COVID, we didn’t sanitise our data and just dumped everything in a SharePoint library, something you shouldn’t really do. A work around is using a solution like CloudDriveMapper, which we use. It’s worth every penny, mapping SharePoint libraries as mapped devices. Their new v3 client is super fast!

 

I get that - but it was performing acceptably, and now it isn't, so something has changed.

[Steve101]

I have received complaints from staff that OneDrive and Sharepoint areas are taking a long time to Sync.. more so than they use to.

[Oaktech]

So upon further investigation, it looks like something - either the app or a setting - is capping the performance.

 

I have found a device which has an older version of the client but with identical hardware and is not in our tenancy. As soon as the instruction to sync is given CPU ramps to 90-100% and doesn't stop until the sync is complete which takes about an hour. The current version of the client never exceeds 10% CPU. I'm going to try this at home this evening on a non-entra joined device running the latest client.

[Matt007a]

Recently had a similar issue. We wanted to move one of our shared drives to SharePoint so staff can access the work at home. As you can imagine the drive is huge and teachers never delete old work out of it.

 

If you try to use the "Add shortcut to OneDrive" option so they can save directly to it in file explorer, OneDrive has a complete meltdown trying to index 100,000s of files. I've had to remove the sync options for now but they're complaining that they can't save directly from Office 2021 to SharePoint.

[StephenPink]

Recently had a similar issue. We wanted to move one of our shared drives to SharePoint so staff can access the work at home. As you can imagine the drive is huge and teachers never delete old work out of it.

 

If you try to use the "Add shortcut to OneDrive" option so they can save directly to it in file explorer, OneDrive has a complete meltdown trying to index 100,000s of files. I've had to remove the sync options for now but they're complaining that they can't save directly from Office 2021 to SharePoint.

 

Is there a way to remove that "Add shortcut to OneDrive" button? As that's caused us a few issues - people have clicked that instead of "sync" and then find they can't sync because of the shortcut, and of course they have no idea where they've saved the shortcut either...

[Matt007a]

Is there a way to remove that "Add shortcut to OneDrive" button? As that's caused us a few issues - people have clicked that instead of "sync" and then find they can't sync because of the shortcut, and of course they have no idea where they've saved the shortcut either...

There is a powershell script to remove it yes.

 

https://helpdesk.realworld.net.au/hc/en-us/articles/20574619264281-Turn-off-Add-shortcut-to-OneDrive-in-SharePoint-Online-service

 

 

That doesn't work on people who have already linked it with a shortcut. To cut them off you need this setting:

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/prevent-users-from-downloading-content-from-a-site-98821ec7-cc99-4393-a002-f73370ba6694

 

Then they get a warning when they open OneDrive saying the Admin does not allow shortcut syncing and they have to press "Remove Shortcut/Folder" to get rid of the warning.

Edited November 27, 2024 by Matt007a