Unfortunately this OneDrive for business review is going to be very one sided! I wouldn’t go as far as saying I’m a Microsoft fanboy but I did really want to like this storage solution but in the end I hated it.
In September of 2014 Microsoft were running a half price offer so I decided that it was the ideal time to get a much needed cloud storage solution. On purchase I found that the price had gone up as the offer had ended. The discount price was still displayed with fine print of the end date but I really think the offer should have been taken down when it was over.
Regardless of missing out on the half price offer I still went ahead with the purchase as the pricing at the time was still nearly half the price of what I considered the best alternative, Dropbox Pro.
During purchase I was happy to find a monthly option that worked out at exactly the same price as purchasing the year up front so I went with the monthly option and I’m so thankful I did.
The problems started even before in installed the application. OneDrive and OneDrive for Business don’t use the same application so installing OneDrive will result in the error that your account doesn’t exist.
Once I found where to install OneDrive for Business I had a few more obstacles to overcome. Firstly I never got a notification when the drive was ready for use, I presumed it would be instant so when I installed the software on my local machines it did nothing. It just wouldn’t sync.
But I’m getting ahead of myself as it took an age to get the software configured properly. I had to assign my one license to a user (myself the only user) then when the sync button was clicked it was supposed to launch something to configure the application running on my machine but it just did nothing. That was until I had the brain wave to use Internet Explorer and then everything worked fine. Both Chrome and Firefox were blocking a popup/script and I didn’t know it.
So the main reason for a cloud storage solution was to have access to my project files, but when tried to copy these files to OneDrive for Business I got an error message that the filename or file structure was too long (I waited hours for it to decide it wasn’t going to sync my files). As a business product I should have be able to store complicated files.
I removed the files in question but after that error it just wouldn’t sync on that machine. I contacted Microsoft support and they were very helpful and did fix the sync issue. That one ray of sunshine wasn’t enough to undo the storm.
From the minute I installed OneDrive for Business I find my machine slowed down and I often got ‘Program not responding’ error messages in many programs but mostly in Office when saving files to the OneDrive.
I regularly got error messages about not being able to sync files because the files were in use. I looked at the files in question and they are not in use anywhere or by any program that I can find.
Not only did I now have OneDrive for Business installed but also a program called Office Upload Center which often popped up with an error “An error occurred while accessing the Office Document cache” even though I wasn’t doing anything and the OneDrive folder often randomly opened in windows explorer even though I wasn’t using it. I’ve seen reports in forums of this process peaking and using 90% of the processor for extended periods of time.
At this point even the minor bugs in the program were driving me mad, instead of the OneDrive folder being called ‘OneDrive’ it was called ‘OneDrive – JohnConleth’ I wanted to use the OneDrive on many PC that often had nothing to do with my own business or were used by my wife. I just wanted it to be short and easy but no, there’s no way to rename it. You are stuck with your username added to the OneDrive name. I know this isn’t the case with the basic version but it just bugged me.
Another tiny bug that was annoying was the fact that the OneDrive often referred to itself as ‘Office’ or ‘SkyDrive’ or ‘SharePoint’. When Microsoft rebranded to use OneDrive (a catchy name) they should have done a better job!
My solution
I gave up, I emailed my concerns to Microsoft but never got a reply. So I went ahead and cancelled my subscription. Upon cancellation I was informed that I had to pay a cancellation fee equal to one months subscription. Listen if that’s what they have to do to make money then let them have it, I was done with the product and was happy to pay to get rid of it.
A few days later I went to Dropbox Pro and paid €99 for a full years subscription. The 1TB of space was available immediately, I installed the Dropbox program and started syncing files straight away. All my files have synced including my ‘complicated’ project files. No fuss all done! A far superior product in my view.
Business Solution
I have a friend inside Microsoft (who shall remain nameless) who had already told me that the development standard was dire but I had no idea software could be this buggy and have the Microsoft badge on it.
I’m aware that Dropbox Pro might lack some of the integration and control that Microsoft offers. I’m the sole person in my business so if the Microsoft extra features are important considerations then perhaps taking advantage of the OneDrive for business Free Trial might be a good option so you can decide for yourself.
So although Dropbox Pro costs nearly twice as much, for me it is far more than twice as good as OneDrive for Business. I hope my OneDrive for business review will help others avoid going through what I did.
The post OneDrive for business review appeared first on John Conleth.
