Item: OneDrive
Rating: 9
Author: Paul Weber

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

OneDrive is our preferred individual cloud storage platform. Students use it for class projects and collaboration, Faculty and staff use it for backup and syncing files across multiple devices. It's great that we have it as part of our O365 subscription, so it is easily available and supportable for all users.

Pros and Cons

Sync - OneDrive does a great job having files available across all devices, particularly the on-demand sync available on Win10 and newer.
Backup - I've used file versions and folder versions multiple times to revert to an older copy or undo an accidental deletion.

Processing changes - This can take quite a while, particularly when a large number of files have changed or after a reboot.
Syncing multiple accounts - It's possible, but not as intuitive as some other cloud storage apps.

Return on Investment

OneDrive makes it easier to support users since it is a Microsoft product and available to everyone.
Because the sync app works on Mac and PC, mobile and desktop, and even web there really isn't a place where it's impossible to access your files easily.

Alternatives Considered

Dropbox and Google Drive

OneDrive is integrated with O365 and Outlook, as well as Windows is really the game-changer. Dropbox and Google pioneered the way, but Microsoft has a tightly integrated, dead simple solution here that I struggle to find complaint with. Google gives some better options for converting files based on type (particularly photos).

Support Rating

It was shaky at first and seemed rushed to market, but over the past three to four years the reliability and features of OneDrive have really surpassed most of the competition. If you can get over a corporation having access to all your files there's really no reason to not use a service like this.

Key Insights

Do you think OneDrive delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with OneDrive's feature set?

Yes

Did OneDrive live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of OneDrive go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy OneDrive again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

OneDrive is great to make sure that all your work files are available everywhere, even on mobile. It's also helpful when your work computer is refreshed, within 5 minutes I have all my files available again! It's less helpful for sharing files that don't need to be sent as-is, video files, in particular, can be a problem because it will try to play them but at the end of the day, it's not a streaming platform.

A simple sync that is built into Windows

Overall Satisfaction with OneDrive