OneDrive Conundrum With Windows 10
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I am really using OneDrive with my "unlimited" (10.3TB actual) OneDrive space with all of my Windows 8x devices. I love how you can view all directories in OneDrive and copy/save to it and access it at anytime. I totally love the "placeholders" that allow you to always view what's on OneDrive and it not having to sync 1:1 on your device. Call me spoiled by Windows 8.1 and the way OneDrive works.
Flash forward to Windows 10 (or back to Windows 7 since it works the same way) and now you have to sync, 1:1. what's on your OneDrive in order to access it in the file system. I thought that programs like Office would have direct access to OneDrive but now, it has to be in sync with the OneDrive folder.
I have a 64GB Dell Venue 8 Pro, still on 8.1. Microsoft touts the fact you have unlimited OneDrive with Office 365 subscriptions but on a device as small as the Venue 8 Pro, I can only sync what my hard drive can hold.
Mind you, I can always go to the web interface for OneDrive and cumbersomely upload and download from it but this isn't a solution, especially if you are wanting to store your stash in the cloud.
Am I just overreacting to the way this works or will anyone else miss the "placeholders."...???
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I agree with you, I'll definitely miss placeholders, but I do understand why they got rid of them.
Placeholders take up X KB per file. With the myriad of small tablets coming out with 8-16 GB of storage, it was realized quickly that someone like @garak0410 could fill up an entire drive in just placeholders, basically making the device useless.
Paul Thurrott did a Windows Weekly on it earlier this year. He mentioned the size of the placeholders, etc.
I would have loved to see a hybrid solution where the software realizes it has enough to hold all the placeholders and still have at least, say, 20% free space left over.
But I understand why they don't want to do that either, because many people just won't 'get it' on how it works.
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@Dashrender said:
I agree with you, I'll definitely miss placeholders, but I do understand why they got rid of them.
Placeholders take up X KB per file. With the myriad of small tablets coming out with 8-16 GB of storage, it was realized quickly that someone like @garak0410 could fill up an entire drive in just placeholders, basically making the device useless.
Paul Thurrott did a Windows Weekly on it earlier this year. He mentioned the size of the placeholders, etc.
I would have loved to see a hybrid solution where the software realizes it has enough to hold all the placeholders and still have at least, say, 20% free space left over.
But I understand why they don't want to do that either, because many people just won't 'get it' on how it works.
So really, unless you can do 1:1 on a FULL Windows Device, cloud storage is not an option. I was really shocked that Excel didn't directly save to OneDrive but needed the In Sync directory.
The Metro/Modern OneDrive app was quirky but I would welcome that in Windows 10 since it was a direct connect to the cloud.
Yeah, I heard Paul last week...for a while, he was telling us to "live with it" but he is sounding like this is just a total bummer.
Even on my 512GB Surface Pro 3, I don't want my entire OneDrive in sync with it. I want a lot of it on the cloud so I don't have to store locally. What's the purpose of the could beyond just having in sync but needing it to be 1:1? My poor Dell Venue 8 Pro is going to be useless...
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I think that this might only be an issue with OneDrive and not OneDrive for Business. But am not sure. Just throwing that out there.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I think that this might only be an issue with OneDrive and not OneDrive for Business. But am not sure. Just throwing that out there.
Correct, for now.
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I'm curious how this works for other cloud storage solutions? If you save to Google Drive, can you just surf through all of the files, even the ones not synced and edit them while you are online with your laptop/pc/phone, etc?
I'm referring specifically to a locally installed app, like Excel, not a cloud/web app like Excel online.
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As I understand it, Google Drive syncs to your computer just like OneDrive on a Windows / Mac devices.
On iOS and Android, it only downloads the files you open / edit. You can tag specific files to be always on your device if you want.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm curious how this works for other cloud storage solutions? If you save to Google Drive, can you just surf through all of the files, even the ones not synced and edit them while you are online with your laptop/pc/phone, etc?
I'm referring specifically to a locally installed app, like Excel, not a cloud/web app like Excel online.
It has to be sync to access it.
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@dafyre said:
As I understand it, Google Drive syncs to your computer just like OneDrive on a Windows / Mac devices.
On iOS and Android, it only downloads the files you open / edit. You can tag specific files to be always on your device if you want.
And THIS is how I want to remain on a Windows Desktop, especially on my low storage device...
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I like the fact that it doesn't sync all of my stuff from my G: drive to my android device. I wish the G: Drive Desktop Client gave you this freedom as well.
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Hold on, I'm lost.
Does Google Drive sync everything to your windows/mac computer? if that's the case and you have 10 TB in their cloud, you probably don't have enough local storage to do that...
Furthermore, depending if those are huge video files or small to medium pictures, could be the difference from a few thousand filenames vs a few hundred thousand filenames.
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@garak0410 said:
And THIS is how I want to remain on a Windows Desktop, especially on my low storage device...
Why? Place holders take up much less space. Syncing all files can easily run out of space.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@garak0410 said:
And THIS is how I want to remain on a Windows Desktop, especially on my low storage device...
Why? Place holders take up much less space. Syncing all files can easily run out of space.
Sorry, I was focused on the quote "On iOS and Android, it only downloads the files you open / edit. You can tag specific files to be always on your device if you want." This is kind of how placeholders work but we get options to do online only or offline.
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@Dashrender said:
Hold on, I'm lost.
Does Google Drive sync everything to your windows/mac computer? if that's the case and you have 10 TB in their cloud, you probably don't have enough local storage to do that...
Yes... Google Drive syncs EVERYTHING to your desktop, AFAIK (I don't use the G: Drive client, lol). So you are correct in that assessment.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@garak0410 said:
And THIS is how I want to remain on a Windows Desktop, especially on my low storage device...
Why? Place holders take up much less space. Syncing all files can easily run out of space.
Because placeholders still aren't free. This is what Paul Thurrott was talking about in the podcast.
@garak0410 says he has 10.3 TB of data in his OneDrive. Let's assume he has 20,000 files in there. If each place holder is 100KB, those 20,000 files will take 1.95 GB of data. While this is no problem for more Desktop or laptops, the new micro tablets that only have 8 GB of storage might not have 2 GB to give, and even if it does, it will quickly run out of space if anything is actually synced with that device.
This is why MS has moved away from placeholders.
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Why the heck is a placeholder around 100KB? That's crazy. 1KB should be plenty. Maybe 4KB at most if there is a lot of meta-data. And at 4KB that is a lot of placeholders that could be downloaded.
Paul has some pretty crazy ideas that I've heard recently.
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@Dashrender I don't understand why not just let the client connect to the cloud storage and download the files you want to edit, and then automagically upload them every time you save?
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@Dashrender said:
This is why MS has moved away from placeholders.
But that explanation made placeholders sound awesome. That doesn't explain why they moved away. It just makes it sound like they hate their customers
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@scottalanmiller said:
Why the heck is a placeholder around 100KB? That's crazy. 1KB should be plenty. Maybe 4KB at most if there is a lot of meta-data. And at 4KB that is a lot of placeholders that could be downloaded.
Paul has some pretty crazy ideas that I've heard recently.
I'll admit I made up the number, I don't have a transcript of the podcast to pull from.. but the idea is what I was going after. Due to the size of the placeholder, and easy to reach number of files on OneDrive could easily make these micro tablets run out of space just holding placeholders.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Why the heck is a placeholder around 100KB? That's crazy. 1KB should be plenty. Maybe 4KB at most if there is a lot of meta-data. And at 4KB that is a lot of placeholders that could be downloaded.
Paul has some pretty crazy ideas that I've heard recently.
I'll admit I made up the number, I don't have a transcript of the podcast to pull from.. but the idea is what I was going after. Due to the size of the placeholder, and easy to reach number of files on OneDrive could easily make these micro tablets run out of space just holding placeholders.
Why is that a reason to not offer them? Clearly for those users, the whole system doesn't work. But nearly everyone, they work great. So with placeholders, everyone wins, who loses?
