Move everything to the cloud ? viable ? which system and how ?

[Talay]

I've been playing around with a personal OneDrive from Microsoft and though I am still not sure whether files are mirrored in the cloud but really stored locally or whether if I disconnected the local copy they would still be there "in the cloud". I'm not a halfwit but I don't think it is clear at all.

Anyway, I seem to have 5TB of storage with a OneDrive / Sharepoint corporate option with my Microsoft 365 business subscription. I seem to have between 2TBG and 3TB of "stuff" that is on SSDs and HDDs etc.

So the option looks viable to shuffle it all up to the sky and hey ho, disaster proofed forever. But it isn't that simple. Folders seem to add but not the content within. No option to do this it seems but some folders have the content in them and I cannot see why some do and some don't. Clearly some setting is screwed up or the whole thing is a joke.

Long ago I used Crashplan to create a constantly updated local copy, then an offsite in my world copy and then a copy with them. That seemed simple and it worked.

Now, a decade later, I struggle to get the same type of thing from either Microsoft or Google.

What's the best option ?

 

[forevergroup]

If you sync a OneDrive for Business or Sharepoint Online folder to a PC using the OneDrive app, anything you put in there is synchronised to the cloud. You can see the progress of this by left clicking on the OneDrive taskbar icon and observing the popup.

You will want to ensure that ‘files on demand’ is turned on so that only desired files are stored locally, and then right-click folders in Windows Explorer that you wish to retain locally and click the option to store them offline (on each device where this is applicable).

The ‘easiest’ way to enforce offline/online sync behaviour in OneDrive without changing regular user behaviour, is to turn on the backup function in the app settings, where documents and desktop are synced to the cloud.

This can be turned on across multiple devices and is essentially a cloud replacement for the common ‘folder redirection’ business setup. It is now called ‘Known Folder Move’.

Don’t forget to consider a third-party cloud—to-cloud backup solution of your Microsoft cloud storage.

More information from Microsoft below:

Sync SharePoint files and folders | Microsoft Support

Training: Sync files in Microsoft 365 or SharePoint document libraries so they’re always available on your computer even when you’re offline.

support.microsoft.com

Redirect and move Windows known folders to OneDrive - SharePoint in Microsoft 365

In this article, you learn how to redirect users' Documents folders or other known folders to OneDrive.

docs.microsoft.com

 

[The Byre]

What's the best option ?

The best option is mirrored local storage. NOT cloud!

We have to have everything stored in triplicate and it has to be 100% secure and the bulk is pretty damn big - many, many TBs. The cost today of SSDs and HDs is bonkers low - about £200-£300 for every 10TBs. Faffing about with silly (and slow) cloud 'solutions' would be for us a complete waste of time and money.

 

[fisicx]

I’ve got a chunky SSD plugged into the router that does in incremental backup every night. I also backup each week to my server. And sync between devices. All of this means I’m not beholden to any third party cloudy provider.

 

[gpietersz]

@The Byre I agree, but do you have offsite backup? What happens if the building burns down? It can be as simple (and cheap) as having extra SSDs you rotate with another location.

@fisicx I backup data that is somewhere else (e.g. websites) to local storage with a similar setup using a RaspberryPI, an encrypted file system on an external SSD, and a simple script.

 

[Paul Carmen]

As with most situations, it's not one size fits all. It depends what type of data you're backing up, the quantity/frequency of it, and how many machines/people need to access it.

If it's for disaster recovery for lots of data for you, then some sort of SSD style backup is great and works quickly.

If it's office type data from multiple people on several computers across multiple locations, that needs to be shared, then SharePoint and MS 365 (or Google equivalent) keeps it pretty safe and accessible by all on as many accounts/machines as you need. You do want fast internet access though, or its clunky and slow.

@Talay if you want them all available offline, then that can be setup in MS 365, settings are here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-folders-87a96948-4dd7-43e4-aca1-53f3e18bea9b

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Think yourselves lucky. A friend was responsible for backup of a major bank. Every couple of days an HGV left London loaded with Magnetic tapes for Switzerland. And back again the next day.

 

[The Byre]

As with most situations, it's not one size fits all. It depends what type of data you're backing up, the quantity/frequency of it, and how many machines/people need to access it.

This!

If you are all in one location, no cloud. Waste of money. If you are spread across the country, I would suggest a WAN instead of some third-party cloud.

And if the data runs into TBs, most of the time, local storage is your only viable option.

 

[Hooble]

It depends on how you use your systems and how you want to access them, we offer both full Cloud and Hybrid cloud to customers allowing customers with high disk IO requirements onsite can do so with a sync of the data held locally and in the cloud ensuring remote offices and VPN users have the same access.

 

[gpietersz]

As @Paul Carmen there are two different issues here.

1. Making things accessible to multiple users, probably in different locations. There are a lot of solutions for this , cloud and not.
2. Having a backup. If you there data is not on your premises, then a local backup is fine because its still in a different location from the data. Its a lot cheaper than a third party backup, and completely under your own control.

If you are spread across the country, I would suggest a WAN instead of some third-party cloud.

Agreed. You get the geographical separatetion.

 

[Talay]

OK, thanks for the responses to date but perhaps I need to add some clarity.

Primarily for me but potentially for others too, I want everything to be available everywhere all the time and be backed up and safe so that if any location burns down it simply doesn't matter.

Let's take an excel spreadsheet. If it lives in the cloud and I amend it in the cloud and so forth then I chuck my laptop in the river and nothing is lost.

If it is stored locally or elsewhere, then you still have the issue of a loss happening somewhere and you not necessarily being able to get back up in no time.

Like I said, I have 5TB available with OneDrive which would cost me zero extra money so why not start there ?

I don't want multiple copies in multiple locations, even if synched because I've done that and been 6000 miles away and something has gone wrong that could not be fixed by the people I had available. I want to review a file at the airport, fly 12 hours and then look at it live again in 16 hours time on the other side of the world. Not a copy of the original, not a local file, just the cloud one.

I take the cloud to cloud option as another backup for sure.

Does this help ?

 

[Paul Carmen]

@Talay from your description I doubt it will work as you're using it now. What you describe is how OneDrive and SharePoint work together, but only if you set it up right in the first place. OneDrive by itself will never work like that, as its designed for one user backup.

Essentially, OneDrive is your local/cloud storage if setup properly, but SharePoint is for you and your teams to be able to see/edit and share the files. This means each user/location accessing needs a MS 365 Business Standard license (email), as otherwise you get security issues if you're all trying to use the same credentials in multiple locations at the same time.

In reality this is fairly easy to do, but if its more than two or three machines, it becomes something of an IT task, as the initial setup and some maintenance is key. The setup process is:

1. You need to set this all up within MS 365 admin centre in the SharePoint settings
2. You create the SharePoint sites as required. You might have one, you might have one for each location/business, depending on who needs to, or who you want to let access what data
3. You then map these SharePoint sites to each individual in the company (by user/email) by adding it to their corporate OneDrive as required in MS 365
4. You then need to setup the corporate version (not personal) of OneDrive on each machine that is going to be accessing the shared data
5. This will then propagate out and they'll have the SharePoint site appear as a normal folder on their machine in OneDrive
6. If you follow the link I added above, you can make sure everything is available offline for you

As with any IT/backup system there are some limitations; e.g. your team need to save things in the right folders (not locally or on the desktop) or they wont be accessible. If you both edit the same file at exactly the same time, they may not synch (this can be resolved manually).

To work properly this needs fast network/wi-fi access; e.g. In your example at the airport, if you don't have wi-fi, or its slow and you make changes without the upload finishing, then your local copy wont be in synch with the network copy.