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Getting One Drive to sync like Google Backup and Sync

Anonymous
2021-05-02T00:31:34+00:00

Hi All,

I have purchased the family subscription for office 365 pretty much to get the 1TB for each user to facilitate backing up files to one drive, its great as my family all use Samsung phones and they also like to backup automatically to one drive, the addition of office is a bonus.

I have been using google backup and sync on my storage PC to automatically backup the important folders to my google drive, this has been very seamless and works perfect.

I guess naively I expected that as one drive is a Microsoft product it would work just as seamless but no matter what I do, I can't get one drive to backup any folder on my PC to the cloud as well or as complete, as the google app.

I have tried using the Mlink command to link the folders I want to back up to identical folders in the one drive local folder, this has worked in part but never seems to totally sync all files to the cloud or track updates well.

I have also tried using AOMEI backupper to do this, while it works better in the sense all files make it to the cloud and its better at keeping on top of file changes, it needs to copy the files I want from their original location to the local one drive folder (mlink also does this) before it can back them up to the cloud.

As an example I have 250gb of files on 'D' drive, either way I try sync the files, they are first copied and stored on the local one drive folder that resides on my C drive which is a 500gb SSD.

You can see the problem here, short of buying a 2tb SSD to enable me make the most of my 1tb cloud storage and have room left on my C drive, is there any way of simply getting files on my D drive mirrored onto my one drive? or do I just go back to google?

Its frustrating as the family subscription ticks all the other boxes...

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Craig Long 17,825 Reputation points
    2021-05-02T07:36:49+00:00

    You can move your OneDrive folder to your D drive if it has adequate space and you intend not to eject the D drive.  This should work fine using an external hard drive.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-the-location-of-your-onedrive-folder

    I have tried using the Mlink command to link the folders I want to back up to identical folders in the one drive local folder, this has worked in part but never seems to totally sync all files to the cloud or track updates well.

    From what I've heard this doesn't work well if at all.

    I have also tried using AOMEI backupper to do this, while it works better in the sense all files make it to the cloud and its better at keeping on top of file changes, it needs to copy the files I want from their original location to the local one drive folder (mlink also does this) before it can back them up to the cloud.

    Moving your OneDrive folder to your D drive will eliminate the need for making backups of your D drive files to your OneDrive folder on your C drive.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-05-02T07:32:57+00:00

    OneDrive as part of Office 365 is not a backup, its a cloud storage of your docs, or at least the local folders you have selected to sync with the cloud, and by sync that means uploading local docs to the cloud.

    It is completely different then any backup solution, which you already have built into win (Win backup & File History)

    The default installation of Office 365 and its OneDrive component uploads all the contents of the PC  \My Documents\ folders to OneDrive, (syncs) and there will be a OneDrive folder in File Explorer containing all the OneDrive content. And in Word etc the default Save location is set to OneDrive.

    This is a separate solution to save local disk space when using OneDrive

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/save-disk-space-with-onedrive-files-on-demand-for-windows-10-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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