Should I Save My Files To OneDrive?

by Steve Yates

The ITS Connection Online Newsletter

You may have noticed Microsoft really wants you and your staff to use OneDrive. You've probably seen Windows' prompts to "back up your PC," which actually stores files in Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service. Here are the pros and cons.

What Microsoft Is Asking

The "back up your PC" prompt in Windows 11 will:

  1. Get you signed in to OneDrive
  2. Move files from standard Windows folders to under your OneDrive folder:
    • Documents
    • Pictures
    • Desktop
    • Music
    • Videos
  3. Redirect/point the existing folder names to their new location
  4. Upload all those folders to the signed in Microsoft OneDrive account (personal or company)

The third step helps this look seamless, in the sense that if you "open your Documents folder" you still see your files. Note one can use OneDrive without the "backup" functionality, but that is the crux of their prompting. Also note this can be undone/disabled.

What You Get

Once your files are in OneDrive, it is easy to share these files across computers. For example if you do the same thing on a laptop, your files in OneDrive will be visible in Documents on both PCs. Ideally it won't download them all (and, due to space that's often discouraged) but Windows can download files on demand. As a bonus, Office files like Word and Excel documents can be edited on multiple devices simultaneously.

This also makes is easier to swap out computers, if staff can immediately access their files, and for a business to access files of a terminated employee.

Files or folders can be shared with others online, as well.

What Microsoft Gets

Presumably they want to make you a "sticky" customer. If you upload a large number of documents or pictures you may quickly hit the free 5 GB storage limit, and purchase more space. If you have a paid Microsoft 365 subscription, which comes with lots of space, you must download your files before cancelling.

Microsoft is also "guiding" business IT towards their cloud services, including authentication to log in to Windows, and associated device management. ITS can help with that, as it's probably best to not do it haphazardly.

Caveats

Of course backups are important. We're a bit skeptical that OneDrive counts as a backup...it's not exactly designed to hold multiple copies of files long term, and any changes sync to all your PCs. Instead, ITS works with third-party services to back up Microsoft 365 at the company level, which includes OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and other data in Microsoft 365.

Some files are problematic in a shared storage situation, for example any database will be constantly trying to upload as it is updated, and anyone else accessing it is editing and uploading their copy, so they will overwrite each other. Very large files (Outlook data) can be problematic as well if the file is continually uploading.

OneDrive has a limit of syncing 300,000 files. Above that, expect errors and various problems. A business trying to store all their files online may be better off using one or more SharePoint sites, which is literally the same back end storage, accessed via a web interface or via the Teams program.

Sharing files or folders can be problematic or confusing later, if one does not remember they are shared.

April 2026

Send this article to a friend!
Subscribe to The ITS Connection

Related articles