OneDrive is very slow.

[rufflow]

Hi guys,

I have been using Dropbox and Google Drive for years. Now that I have Windows 10 and Office 365 is thought about ditching those 2 and putting everything on OneDrive.

So I started uploading all my pictures, camera roll, word files, notebooks and music. So everything would sync nice with the apps on my PC, iPad and Android phone.
Or so I thought...

Whatever I do everything seems to go very slowly. While uploading 85 pictures my PC only synced a part of it. It took my eventually 2 times restarting the OneDrive process to finally find them and get them to sync. Then I opened some pictures on my iPad app and deleted them. Deleting pictures took a very long time and then I got a message the pictures couldn't be removed but when I refresh some are gone anyway. So I take out my Android phone and whatever I do in that app there is always that turning refreshing icon at the top and it goes equally slow. Also my OneDrive has created doubles with the name of my PC added to the filename.

Is this normal? I have a very good internet connection. It seems things like Dropbox and Google Drive sync my stuff within 2 seconds when I put in a folder but OneDrive seem to takes ages no matter the platform/app I use. Also opening files, pictures or music takes a lot long longer then on competing platforms. Since I uploaded my pictures, music and work documents do have a lot files.

Such a shame because I was hoping to go all in with the 'Windows 10 experience'.

What is your experience with OneDrive compared to other services?

[Anibal P]

For the most part they are all the same, the only limiting factor for cloud syncing is your connection speeds

 

With good service everything is fairly quick and no errors, haven't tried on a slow connection because I know it will not work well 

[kozukumi]

OneDrive isn't as nice an experience as Dropbox, even Paul Thurrott recently wrote about why he uses Dropbox over OneDrive https://www.thurrott.com/cloud/4888/what-i-use-dropbox

[f1ux]

I've just been attempting to backup my photo library to OneDrive.....  Not a nice process!

I've tried several methods, and found the quickest is with Goodsync on my mac, using several threads....

So far i have uploaded 8GB of folders/photos.  The thing is though when doing an 'Analysis' before syncing one drive is SOOOOO SLOW!

I have the exact same photos on my amazon cloud trial account and Onedrive.

Analysis on amazon cloud for 3899 files
2015-08-12 20:13:32: -- Analysis Complete. Time 00:01:37,

Analysis on Onedrive for 3899 files
2015-08-12 20:47:35: -- Analysis Complete. Time 00:40:28

Thats 40 minutes before it even starts to think about syncing!!! Crazy!

[kozukumi]

f1ux, yeah I have around 800GB of photos and OneDrive just couldn't handle it when i tried. It needs a lot of work.

[Dashel]

I haven't had any issues with the integrated OneDrive sync.  The OneDrive for Business client is fickle but its also pending a rewrite.  I don't throw that much data at it at once generally.  Why would I care how long it takes to index in the background?

Surely not enough to have another running process and another logon to keep track of in addition to being on an inferior cloud to begin with.  OneDrive is more than just a sync client.

[rufflow]

I noticed the Windows 10 client is a bit better than the 8.1 version. That thing was always on 'processing' for hours after I booted my computer.

I uploaded my music collection to OneDrive and Google Play Music. Same connection and circumstances
Google (through music manager): 1.2 day
OneDrive: almost 3 days

Very strange. Stuff like Google Drive, Dropbox syncs instantaneously to all types of devices.

However I am trying to stick with Microsoft services at least for 2 months now. I always do this after a major OS release to check out the competition and to satisfy my geek factor

[tompkin]

This has been a problem for quite awhile now and Microsoft is aware of it.

I am hoping very much that they will get it fixed soon.

I'm like you, I'm holding out until they fix it. I haven't even begun to upload my music yet because I couldn't imagine how long it would take.
I mainly use it as a document backup and the limited amount of pictures that I have.

 

[f1ux]

I contacted support about it and they were useless! No reassurance it was even being worked on to fix at all.
She couldn't even understand what I meant by "slow to upload".....

I got a refund through amazon though so all is not lost!

[Depicus]

OneDrive for Business is simply awful - and I'd like a £ for every time I hear that Microsoft are working on fixing it... 

Perish the thought you would want to do anything important with it - it took me weeks to upload 600GB of images as the web browser limits you to 100 files at a time !!!! WTF

I am sure the idea is to sell you the idea of cloud storage but to make it so difficult to use for anything you just give up.

[Dashel]

You should be using the sync client for multi file/folder uploads...

[f1ux]

You should be using the sync client for multi file/folder uploads...

Could you elaborate please?

The one drive official app isn't any good to me as I keep my photos on an external drive. 

I was using the app "Goodsync" which can connect to multiple local or cloud storage options, and supports multiple connections/threads to onedrive etc.

While file upload speed increases with multithreading, the actual analysis that it needs to do beforehand takes ages, hence the 40minutes on onedrive vs amazons 1min40seconds.

 

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

We had a topic on this a few months ago too, OneDrive been slow has been an issue going on two years now unfortunately.

The Neowin topic from earlier this year: OneDrive Throttling Users to 355 KB/s.

[Dashel]

If you are moving that much data from non-primary storage, you could have also used the WebDAV connection via the ribbon. (Though sadly it seems they may prune away that feature in the future)

The new website for the consumer version is pretty schnazzy too.

[rufflow]

Well after 2 weeks of trying I must say OneDrive is the achilles heel of Windows 10.

I was trying Windows 10 with going "all in" into OneDrive for picture sharing, music streaming, mobile android access and iPad acces.

I see the beginnings of a cool ecosystem with nicer (but still barebones) universal apps with the 'OneDrive-glue' that ties everything together.

And that's the problem: the glue dries way too slow.

- Music: Streaming music leaves gaps of 5 seconds between every song while it is buffering the next one. Annoying. If I change a tag it needs to reupload the whole 150MB again. A tag edit option on the site or W10 would be nice.
- Pictures: Uploading and watching picture albums is slow and the site is still in transition between the old and the new. I couldn't share a photo album through the Android app and my albums don't sync with the Win10 app. That app makes albums automatically. Could be nice, but manual album sync and creation is a must.
- OneNote: syncing goes slow. I get messages on other devices that "a page can't open because it hasn't been fully synced on another device". Sometimes I needed to manually sync to see changes. This goes slow. I couldn't share in Edge browser to the full OneNote 2013/2016 suite. I had to use that mobile app. Also you can't move pages from 'Quick Notes' to another section in that mobile app. You need the full OneNote for that. Annoying if you bookmark a lot.
- Settings: Sharing favorites through OneDrive is weird. You have to edit them in IE11, wait and then import them again in Edge. Also reading lists and other stuff don't sync yet. This should be a basic feature in 2015 between pc's.
- Syncing: OneDrive has created copies in some directories with the computername attached to them. Also uploading, downloading and 'processing changes' seem to take ages while other services do it instantly. Also the Android app is constantly showing the refreshing icon as soon as you touch it.
- File versions: I work a lot with Visual Studio files. Unfortunately file versioning is only available for Office files. Other services offer this for all filetypes.

So I see lots of promise in one cohesive ecosystem. But as usual with Microsoft, it isn't there yet. OneDrive really need to go way faster and the apps need more options if they want users to take this seriously. Can't keep woohing users with 'lots of free space' but speed and reliability is important.

This concludes my experiment for now. Going back to Google Drive, Google Music locker and Google Photo's for the meantime. Maybe october or after redstone I will try again. I still have my dream about one cohesive microsoft ecosystem before they abandon ship after version 1.2 and rebuild from scratch...again

[Jatheon]

Only I can say is you can should try to force OneDrive to sync again. You can do that by moving  the files that are still syncing out of the OneDrive folders to another location outside of OneDrive, such as the Desktop. This will delete the files off OneDrive but you will still have a local copy on your local PC. 

[+Thayios Subscriber²]

I haven't had any issues with the Residential side, I don't expect uploads to be instant personally so I can't comment there.

The business sync client in PREVIEW is just the residential client without some settings - it does sync much faster and has zero issues as far as I can tell so far, this is after a few weeks of testing.

As of right now, I mainly use OneDrive for ISO Archive and stuff like tha, documents and pictures are there because they usually upload pretty fast but I haven't tried videos or pictures yet.

[bluesman86]

Getting my initial 500GB over to OneDrive was a pain in the ass, but now it works pretty well. It chokes and crashes when you throw too many new files at once into it. The Windows 10 client is way too limited, too. I really hope they'll fix it.

Google Drive has been a more pleasant and fast experience for me overall, but the Office 365 deal is just too good to pass up. MS Office online is also better than Google Apps. But yeah, the OneDrive syncing client kinda blows as it is. They said they're gonna improve it soon, though.

[+Thayios Subscriber²]

Getting my initial 500GB over to OneDrive was a pain in the ass, but now it works pretty well. It chokes and crashes when you throw too many new files at once into it. The Windows 10 client is way too limited, too. I really hope they'll fix it.

Google Drive has been a more pleasant and fast experience for me overall, but the Office 365 deal is just too good to pass up. MS Office online is also better than Google Apps. But yeah, the OneDrive syncing client kinda blows as it is. They said they're gonna improve it soon, though.

 

 

I see someone else was sitting in on the webcast/meeting!

[Gotenks98]

As much as I like the features its just too slow to sync. What I hate most is how they butchered it in Windows 10 by taking away the offline files mode and folder redirection hack that you could do in Windows 8.1. It makes using it on an SSD kind of pointless. The price per GB on those things are not down enough to be using OneDrive on the main hard drive of a system.

[BajiRav]

As someone who recently uploaded about 100GB of home videos overnight, I never understand why some people have some much trouble with it. It kind of works fine for my use. I also recently set up a new laptop for wife and her OneDrive (~10GB) downloaded just fine in couple of hours. (I have a 50/15 Mbps line)

[seeprime]

f1ux, yeah I have around 800GB of photos and OneDrive just couldn't handle it when i tried. It needs a lot of work.

It seems that getting a couple of 2+ TB external hard drives and copying all to each one would be faster. Not cheap at around $200 total, but fast. Keep one in a different location to avoid a total loss of the pictures in case of theft or fire.

[bluesman86]

As someone who recently uploaded about 100GB of home videos overnight, I never understand why some people have some much trouble with it. It kind of works fine for my use. I also recently set up a new laptop for wife and her OneDrive (~10GB) downloaded just fine in couple of hours. (I have a 50/15 Mbps line)

I dunno, man. I had a clean Windows 10 install, and copied about 500GB worth of files into it. This computer was on a 200Mbit fiber connection. OneDrive would freeze up the entire system unless I put smaller amounts of files into it at once. Google Drive and Dropbox never gave me problems like that. Right now, OneDrive feels glitchy and very bare-bones. I can't even pause it, which is a major pain in the ass! I use writing/editing software (Scrivener, check it out, it's awesome) that saves several files continuously as you work, and that confuses sync software like OneDrive. Normally I would just pause Google Drive, but with OneDrive, I can't. 

A couple of weeks ago, I had to re-link OneDrive on all my computers. I guess they pushed an update that caused the application to log out or something. Stuff like that is just annoying. You also can't really see what it's doing. It's "looking for changes" or it's "Uploading files". Which files? Which changes? Just tell me! 

I'm sure it will get better in time, but as it is right now, it feels like a very rushed product that had to be in Windows 10 in one way or another.

[T3X4S]

I was about to chime in and say that I have had no problems whatsoever on a 100/100 connection.   I purchased Office 365, but previously paid about $20/yr for added OneDrive storage (I have about 1.3TB now)

But, it seems I simply dont push it as hard as others so Im afraid I cant really comment.  I have never used it for more than some ISO, all my pics, and a few documents.  I only have about 70GB on there and its great.

When I take a picture on my iPhone, it autosyncs with the OneDrive app on my phone - and within seconds its on my computer - but that is just a couple pics, not a couple hundred Gigs

[BajiRav]

I was about to chime in and say that I have had no problems whatsoever on a 100/100 connection.   I purchased Office 365, but previously paid about $20/yr for added OneDrive storage (I have about 1.3TB now)

But, it seems I simply dont push it as hard as others so Im afraid I cant really comment.  I have never used it for more than some ISO, all my pics, and a few documents.  I only have about 70GB on there and its great.

When I take a picture on my iPhone, it autosyncs with the OneDrive app on my phone - and within seconds its on my computer - but that is just a couple pics, not a couple hundred Gigs

Yeah same here. I use it backup my Documents, Pictures and Videos directories (office 365 here as well). Those are directly linked to my profile folders as well. There are clearly problems with OneDrive because of how many people run into trouble with it. It's just that between me, my wife and my dad's OneDrive - I have never had problems.