Is OneDrive for me?


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Hello everybody. 

 

With Windows 10 coming out soon with a deep OneDrive integration, I figured it would be a good moment to switch from Google to MS for my cloud services. Having MS Office in a browser also seems like a very convenient thing to have.

 

Thing is, after reading this article, I'm kinda worried. Here's why:

  • I'm a professional photographer, and I have several (semi)nudes in my portfolio.
  • In my free time, I write fiction that contains sex, crime and violence. You know, just like many other novels out there.
  • My entire music collection is backed up in my current Google Drive cloud; over a 100GB of FLAC music ripped from original CDs.
  • I have software license keys from Windows, Office, and others backed up in a flie in the cloud
  • I have ISO files from Windows, Office and others backed up in the cloud for convenience

Should I skip on the idea of using OneDrive altogether, or am I safe here? I don't want to risk losing all my data and access to my account.

 

It's also worrying to me that Microsoft apparently is allowed to go through my files to see what's in there. I wonder how many times that actually happens. 

 

Thanks :)

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Should I skip on the idea of using OneDrive altogether

Given your content and your alledged proffesional work you should be using a paid for service for at least some of it

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My understanding is that unless you are sharing your cloud data publicly, you're not going to run into any issues. I've had no issues storing ISOs and there are certainly pictures of my kids that probably would trip some alarms if they were being shared with others.  We just dump everything from our cameras on to our Media Center PC and it syncs everything with OneDrive. We don't always get around to curating the content. :)

 

Get an Office 365 personal subscription and you'll get 1TB of storage with no number of file limits (as opposed to OneDrive for Business). Copy your music up to the music directory and you'll be able to stream it via Xbox Music (not sure if this requires a subscription, though *EDIT* checked -- it does not!).

 

Consider picking up one of the sub $100 tablets out there -- it'll get you a year of Office 365 (and that 1TB of storage) for the price of the tablet. Considering O365 Personal is $69/year, it's a steal.  Buy a tablet once a year and eBay it. :)

 

-Forjo

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^ You get 10TB of space with OneDrive, when you get an office subscription.

 

For me, it's Dropbox > GDrive > OneDrive. I have 10TB of space on OneDrive and don't use it at all, for the following reasons.

  1. Slow Syncs.
  2. Limit on how many actual files you can store, I think it's 20,000 files?
  3. Average sharing abilities - you will miss this a lot.
  4. No two-click share options as with Google Drive and Dropbox, you need to go online to do that.
  5. Shared folders do not sync on the computer of the person you share the folder with.

If you want a cloud that acts just as a backup of your content than OneDrive is a good. If you want great sharing abilities and sync speeds than I would say no.

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I have used OneDrive in 8.1 and its ok. In 10 it has changed though which really sucks. Rather than "see" all my files now I have to picked locations to sync in advance. Really not helpful for how I work. 

 

The most flexible is still probably Dropbox although they are also the most expensive. 

 

The best way for me is still a VPS with a few TB of storage and NFS. Works everywhere without fail. Not as user friendly in some ways but so much more flexible. 

 

I do still use OneDrive for my camera roll backup from my phone though as I have 30GB free storage on it. 

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  • I'm a professional photographer, and I have several (semi)nudes in my portfolio.
  • In my free time, I write fiction that contains sex, crime and violence. You know, just like many other novels out there.
  • My entire music collection is backed up in my current Google Drive cloud; over a 100GB of FLAC music ripped from original CDs.
  • I have software license keys from Windows, Office, and others backed up in a flie in the cloud
  • I have ISO files from Windows, Office and others backed up in the cloud for convenience

 

 

Microsoft doesn't have people going through your files, it's an automatic scanner. It would be ridiculous for Microsoft (or any other companies with cloud storage) to have people go through billions of files.

 

The one thing that might not work out is your seminude photos. Microsoft has an algorithm that scans for nudity and deletes them.

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Yeah, I was thinking about getting the Office 365 subscription with 1TB of data. 

 

 

My understanding is that unless you are sharing your cloud data publicly, you're not going to run into any issues. I've had no issues storing ISOs and there are certainly pictures of my kids that probably would trip some alarms if they were being shared with others.  We just dump everything from our cameras on to our Media Center PC and it syncs everything with OneDrive. We don't always get around to curating the content. :)

 

Get an Office 365 personal subscription and you'll get 1TB of storage with no number of file limits (as opposed to OneDrive for Business). Copy your music up to the music directory and you'll be able to stream it via Xbox Music (not sure if this requires a subscription, though *EDIT* checked -- it does not!).

 

Consider picking up one of the sub $100 tablets out there -- it'll get you a year of Office 365 (and that 1TB of storage) for the price of the tablet. Considering O365 Personal is $69/year, it's a steal.  Buy a tablet once a year and eBay it. :)

 

-Forjo

 

That's good. 

 

Microsoft doesn't have people going through your files, it's an automatic scanner. It would be ridiculous for Microsoft (or any other companies with cloud storage) to have people go through billions of files.

 

The one thing that might not work out is your seminude photos. Microsoft has an algorithm that scans for nudity and deletes them.

 

Are you saying they can go ahead and delete things without letting me know? That would be an instant dealbreaker.

 

 

Why not use both?

 

Because I'm already paying $10 a month for 1TB of Google Drive. I don't feel like paying that amount twice. It's one or the other. I have around 400GB of data to store total. Most of it is photos in RAW-format. 

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Your nude images will be fine, as long as they stay private. (Only exception is child pornography and child abuse; don't post pictures of that.) This is what is said in this Neowin article about the SkyDrive Reddit AMA, where someone asked them about it, and Microsoft's legal text pretty much matches up.

 

I'm not the most proud of this, but I do have a sizeable collection of pirated music and some TV shows and stuff on my OneDrive (although a notable amount of it's not available in the US, so...); it's been there for months now, and continues to be there.

 

I find OneDrive's web interface pretty easy to use, and its mobile apps also do fairly well at getting the job done. Sharing from the web interface or the mobile apps is as simple as selecting the files and hitting a button. My computer has Windows 7, not 8, so I can't tell you about that, but the OneDrive app Microsoft provides acts pretty much like Dropbox's. Little thing in the system tray tells you what it's doing at the moment, and you can right-click it, access Settings, and choose which folders you don't want it to sync to your computer. Files in the OneDrive folder on your computer will have the little checkbox if it's synced, or have some other icon if it's still working on it.

 

I have the camera backup thing on my Android phone, and once OneDrive uploads them from there, within a minute, they're good to go on my computer. Overall, syncing with my computer is a pretty alright speed. Nothing that leaves me speechless, but it's not that bad either. (As well, though, my Internet speed isn't that great.) Depending upon your Internet, you'll probably need all night to initially get all 400 GB of stuff up there on your OneDrive. Once that's out of the way, you'll be good.

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^ You get 10TB of space with OneDrive, when you get an office subscription.

 

For me, it's Dropbox > GDrive > OneDrive. I have 10TB of space on OneDrive and don't use it at all, for the following reasons.

  • Slow Syncs.
  • Limit on how many actual files you can store, I think it's 20,000 files?
  • Average sharing abilities - you will miss this a lot.
  • No two-click share options as with Google Drive and Dropbox, you need to go online to do that.
  • Shared folders do not sync on the computer of the person you share the folder with.
If you want a cloud that acts just as a backup of your content than OneDrive is a good. If you want great sharing abilities and sync speeds than I would say no.

 

10TB is not universally true:

 

storage.jpg?psid=1

 

1.  I've read that, but the client is able to pretty will saturate my bandwidth.

2.  The 20,000 limit is for Onedrive for Business. The personal one doesn't have that limit.

3.  I can right-click a file and share it very easily. If I do so in file explorer, it puts me in the website asking for the address of the person I want to share with. If I use the Windows 8 app I can instantly get a link and select read/write options. I don't use the other services, but sharing with Onedrive is very easy.

4. see #3

5. This is true -- you can only view files shared with you in an app or the website. I'd say there is limited need for this. But it is a limitation.

 

-Forjo

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10TB is not universally true:

 

storage.jpg?psid=1

 

1.  I've read that, but the client is able to pretty will saturate my bandwidth.

2.  The 20,000 limit is for Onedrive for Business. The personal one doesn't have that limit.

3.  I can right-click a file and share it very easily. If I do so in file explorer, it puts me in the website asking for the address of the person I want to share with. If I use the Windows 8 app I can instantly get a link and select read/write options. I don't use the other services, but sharing with Onedrive is very easy.

4. see #3

5. This is true -- you can only view files shared with you in an app or the website. I'd say there is limited need for this. But it is a limitation.

 

-Forjo

 

Yes it's true...  He got 10TB because he was in part of unlimited storage which began rolling out...  He got unlimited access early which is why MS gave him 10TB for now ...  Public gets their unlimited storage as soon as MS completes rollout to all editions of Office plans.

 

This is not my screenshot but I show you the example:

onedrive-storage.jpg

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well if you think some content might be "objectionable" just use winrar and make rar file with password of 15 - 20 characters containing Caps, Small Letters, Numbers and Special Chars.

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Yes it's true...  He got 10TB because he was in part of unlimited storage which began rolling out...  He got unlimited access early which is why MS gave him 10TB for now ...  Public gets their unlimited storage as soon as MS completes rollout to all editions of Office plans.

 

This is not my screenshot but I show you the example:

onedrive-storage.jpg

Yes, I'm aware of that -- and I know the website where you can request early access. I just wanted to clarify that he may not immediately have 10TB of storage.

 

-Forjo

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Thanks everyone. Sounds like I'm good as long as I keep everything to myself and don't publicly share it, which I intended to do in the first place. :)

 

Looking forward to having a nice, streamlined experience on W10.

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Hello,

 

I would suggest getting an external hard disk drive (or two) and periodically backing up/syncing its contents with your data.  That way if your cloud account is closed or loses data for some reason, you'll still have the backed-up copies of your data on the external hard disk drive(s).

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

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Hello,

 

I would suggest getting an external hard disk drive (or two) and periodically backing up/syncing its contents with your data.  That way if your cloud account is closed or loses data for some reason, you'll still have the backed-up copies of your data on the external hard disk drive(s).

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Good one. I already do that, but I should make it more of a habit.

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Hello,

 

Try to make it as automatic a habit as possible.  I always start a backup at the end of my daily computing session that just does the delta of what's changed.  This frequency means that the time required to backup the change data is very short.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

 

 

 

Good one. I already do that, but I should make it more of a habit.

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