OneDrive pros & cons

With an amazing offer of six accounts for the price of one, the business tactic of OneDrive is to capture as many end-users as possible from the growing Cloud Storage market. Microsoft is aware that they can no longer charge a premium for their MS Office package since excellent alternatives are available for free, like Google Sheets and Docs, and because of that Microsoft chose to add MS Office as a freebie to all OneDrive paid accounts. With a heavy shift towards online file storage, users must choose whom to trust, but once a choice is made and their files are online, it is hard to shift to a different provider. The big players are aware of the difficulties to change providers and are throwing irresistible offers at the end-users to sign them up as new clients. Their end goal is to capture as much as possible from the growing Personal Cloud Storage market, as it will later generate consistent monthly recurring income in the form of monthly's subscription fee. The target markets are private individuals, but also self-employed freelancer or even SMEs who are looking for file storage and backup solution. And while Google stands out with the speed of its applications, Microsoft’s OneDrive seems to be the more common choice amongst PC users because of its seamless integration with Windows.

Problem: Which cloud storage provider to choose - OneDrive or Google - and why.
Solution: For seamless integrations with Windows and value for money (6 users for the price of 1) choose OneDrive. For speed of applications and better templates choose Google Drive.

PROS & CONS of OneDrive, one of my favourite products

The short article below explains why OneDrive is one of my favourite digital products. I will show a few pros but also cons of OneDrive. In my cost comparison of OneDrive to Google Driver (1TB plan) it is apparent that you get 6x more in product value from OneDrive for the same £7.99pm cost.

Before I explain why OneDrive is my favourite product, I would like to give you a high-level preview of their offerings and how it works. In the race for personal cloud storage Microsoft launched paid version of OneDrive which gives users access to 1TB of cloud storage as well as licence to Microsoft 365 / formerly Office 365 which includes Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Windows users benefit from a dedicated OneDrive icon on their File Explorer which ensures seamless integration with Windows. All files and folders have icons next to them which indicate if they are only available online, locally available upon opening the file, or always available on the device even when it is offline. Users can see a complete index-list of all online files and folders (even if they are not downloaded on their device) or choose to only see and/or sync specific folders which could be customised for each of their devices.

Being a keen user of both Google and Microsoft products when it comes online file storage and backup, I choose Microsoft’s OneDrive for the following reasons:

1. It offers best value for money – Compared to “Google drive storage” which offers similar features – 1TB of storage and Office 365 alternatives (Sheets and Docs) for the exactly the same price as OneDrive £7.99 per month – OneDrive offers in fact five additional accounts free of charge, bringing the total accounts you get for £7.99 to six, meaning that you receive 6TB of storage alongside six licenses for Office 365 for the same price as single G-Drive user. A great deal and a no-brainer if you want family members to benefit for free from your subscription.

2. Never lose a file – I have personally used OneDrive for more than four years now and have never lost a single file, even though the product has multiple flows which are still to be addressed by Microsoft (see list below). Even when the app crashed and syncing stops working, disconnecting, or re-installing the OneDrive app is easy and keeps your files intact.

3. All files are accessible on all my devices, at all times, and without taking up any extra space. Files can be downloaded on demand and one can easily choose to “free up space” once they finish using them which makes them available only online again.

4. I have ditched external HDDs and personal servers 4 years ago and never regretted it. I have access 24/7/365 of all my files from anywhere and I know they are backed up securely. Even if an accident happens, my files will remain in my online Recycling bin for 30 days and I can easily recover them. During the last four years this has happened once when I renamed all my folders and moved files around to setup a new filing structure. The system got confused as I moved simultaneously local and cloud-based files and folders.

5. Simplified syncing. I see a complete index-list of all my files and folders on all my devices even if none of them are locally downloaded to my device. I can also specify which folders are to be synced and which ones indexed only, a key improvement to the product done 3 years ago.

Having mentioned some of the benefits of one drive, I would also like to touch-base on a few suggested improvements which would further enhance the user experience.

Issues with OneDrive, but even with them the product is still great.

1. You have no clear visibility of what has been synced in the past or what is being synced at present. There is no clear track record of which files were synced in the past week, month, etc. the issue grows bigger when OneDrive gets stuck in syncing mode and requires re-start.

2. There is no way to prioritise file syncing, i.e. if you are in rush to share a file you have no idea at what time it will sync online, so you can share a link with a client. Sometimes, I manually copy the file(s) online, but in some cases, this may result in duplicated backup folder once the file is synced by the system later. Ideally on Right-mouse-click the user should be able to choose an option like “Prioritise sync (for this file/folder)”. I hope it is in MS’s development pipeline.

3. Unfortunately accessing cloud-based Word and Excel documents is still slower than accessing Google Sheets and Google Docs. The load time on average takes extra 2-5 seconds, which in today’s expectations for instant gratifications is considered slow and may put some users off.

4. There is no log for sync issues, only a pop-up message, which appears only for 2 seconds. If you miss it and you don’t take immediate actions, you will most certainly end up with a duplicate file and folder somewhere in your files, which may be hard to locate and takes extra space.

5. When sharing a OneDrive folder the system does not remember if the folder has already been shared previously, instead it simply creates a new sharable link and as a result you may end up with 5-6 different links for the same folder, not ideal but the more you use the product the more workarounds you find. In this case if you click on Options for the folder then you get to see if there is already a shareable link created in the past, which you can copy. In comparison, Google Drive opens the way a file or folder is shared and keeps the original link.

With that said I hope I have managed to cover some of the pros and cons of my favourite product OneDrive and why I chose using it over other competitors.

OneDrive does not provide clear log of uploaded files.

OneDrive on-demand files save space on your device.

OneDrive does not have a simple file-conflict log.

OneDrive used to creates multiple links of the same file/folder.

OneDrive will be even better if you can prioritise file syncing.

You have contacted ConciseUX.co.uk. We will be in touch soon. Thank you!

↑Back to Top