Onedrive better then Dropbox?

[maflynn]

I don't have a love/hate relationship with OneDrive but rather a tolerate/hate relationship. Probably 90% of the time its fine, and it fulfills my needs, but those other times it can be frustrating.

I really don't want to pay for another subscription but I'm starting to think Dropbox may be better.

Thoughts and opinions on OneDrive, why its not that bad, and since I'm paying for office 365 sub, might as well keep use it, since I have the storage, or dropbox is better for x, y and z reasons?

I know there's other services, google, box etc but I'm just focusing on dropbox, since I have an old account with them and they were good enough, but I stopped using it once I got the office 365 sub

 

[Slartibart]

For what usage scenario? e.g. if you need to collaborate with people using MS Office the integration within is probably better with OneDrive.
If cross-platform compatibility is what your after I tend to recommend Dropbox due to the upcoming changes to OneDrive on MacOS.

I share your love/hate relationship… in my case with both… the grass isn’t really greener on the otherside.?

 

[maflynn]

For what usage scenario?

Personal use, non-business

I really don't use macs anyone more so cross platform is not something I care about

the grass isn’t really greener on the otherside.?

Yeah I know, and you need to factor in that the other grass will cost me about 116 dollars a year. I may see about dropping down to a cheaper office plan, but my wife and I use office a lot.

 

[maflynn]

Let me add, that at times, I seem to incur some oddities with syncing, for instance, they have an extra protected directory called the vault. Suddenly, that was giving me an error and not syncing, I couldn't even delete it.

Another time, I had turned off syncing my desktop directory, but it turned itself on and my desktop was flooded with files from my other laptop. I couldn't turn that off, it turned itself on and wouldn't stop, but then a couple of days later its off ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It was hard to find, but at one point it seemed MS did not backup your onedrive data, only business accounts, but now it seems they do. We have 30 days to recover a file or restore an older version. I only found this out this morning, I was up until that time thinking my data wasn't being backed up. Still, I'm a little anxious about this

 

[AZhappyjack]

I don't have a love/hate relationship with OneDrive but rather a tolerate/hate relationship. Probably 90% of the time its fine, and it fulfills my needs, but those other times it can be frustrating.

I really don't want to pay for another subscription but I'm starting to think Dropbox may be better.

Thoughts and opinions on OneDrive, why its not that bad, and since I'm paying for office 365 sub, might as well keep use it, since I have the storage, or dropbox is better for x, y and z reasons?

I know there's other services, google, box etc but I'm just focusing on dropbox, since I have an old account with them and they were good enough, but I stopped using it once I got the office 365 sub

I've been using Drobox for several years, and maybe I'm just used to that interface... but I much prefer it over the other options (OneDrive, Google Drive, etc). To be totally honest, I have not used/explored OneDrive to the extent that I have Dropbox. We use Google's G-Suite at our non-profit, and I have some experience there, but still prefer Dropbox.

I have never gotten the OneDrive or Google Drive apps to work properly (as I see it) as a "folder" paradigm. For me, Dropbox is just another folder on my Mac(s) the I can share the contents of simply and quickly.

Not sure if any of that is helpful to you, but it just seems to work better for my workflow to share files (graphics, videos, documents) across my Macs and with colleagues.

 

[keeper]

I have Onedrive but don’t use it for some reason.

As I have a Synology NAS I use Synology Drive and Synology Photos and use their backup solution in the cloud which cost less the £10 a year, but it does have initial setup costs.
Main reason for me its used for Timemachine, music, personal data, runs my CCTV. Its an all in one box for me.

 

[skaertus]

I don't have a love/hate relationship with OneDrive but rather a tolerate/hate relationship. Probably 90% of the time its fine, and it fulfills my needs, but those other times it can be frustrating.

I really don't want to pay for another subscription but I'm starting to think Dropbox may be better.

Thoughts and opinions on OneDrive, why its not that bad, and since I'm paying for office 365 sub, might as well keep use it, since I have the storage, or dropbox is better for x, y and z reasons?

I know there's other services, google, box etc but I'm just focusing on dropbox, since I have an old account with them and they were good enough, but I stopped using it once I got the office 365 sub

Let me add, that at times, I seem to incur some oddities with syncing, for instance, they have an extra protected directory called the vault. Suddenly, that was giving me an error and not syncing, I couldn't even delete it.

Another time, I had turned off syncing my desktop directory, but it turned itself on and my desktop was flooded with files from my other laptop. I couldn't turn that off, it turned itself on and wouldn't stop, but then a couple of days later its off ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It was hard to find, but at one point it seemed MS did not backup your onedrive data, only business accounts, but now it seems they do. We have 30 days to recover a file or restore an older version. I only found this out this morning, I was up until that time thinking my data wasn't being backed up. Still, I'm a little anxious about this

I have OneDrive as part of my Microsoft 365 subscription. It is fine, but I can notice some problems when syncing. Especially when syncing between a PC and a Mac.

I have never had any of these problems with Dropbox. I would say that Dropbox is better than OneDrive.

However, it is very difficult to justify Dropbox. Microsoft 365 costs $100 a year, and that includes me and 5 people of my family, with 1 TB of OneDrive. And it comes with all Microsoft Office applications, which are the industry standard. Dropbox alone would cost $19.95 a month for just one user, giving me 3 TB of storage.

Dropbox may be better at syncing, but it is extremely expensive for what it offers. Microsoft 365 is miles ahead, no contest at all, wins hands down.

 

[LeeW]

Overall I do think Dropbox is better but stuck with OneDrive. It is not perfect but as part of the Office 365 sub I will make do.

 

[sracer]

I don't have a love/hate relationship with OneDrive but rather a tolerate/hate relationship. Probably 90% of the time its fine, and it fulfills my needs, but those other times it can be frustrating.

I really don't want to pay for another subscription but I'm starting to think Dropbox may be better.

Thoughts and opinions on OneDrive, why its not that bad, and since I'm paying for office 365 sub, might as well keep use it, since I have the storage, or dropbox is better for x, y and z reasons?

I know there's other services, google, box etc but I'm just focusing on dropbox, since I have an old account with them and they were good enough, but I stopped using it once I got the office 365 sub

I prefer Dropbox over OneDrive but because I'm paying for Office 365, I'm using OneDrive. I limit my Dropbox use to the free tier and if I ever get to the point where I don't need MS Office on Mac OS, then I'll drop it altogether and move to a paid tier on Dropbox.

Dropbox has for years been rock solid for me. An absolute pleasure to use on all of my devices (except for chromebooks where anything other than Google Drive is a pain). In contrast, I've experienced periodic issues with OneDrive. Add to that the way Microsoft monkeys around with how OneDrive works, and it's not really an appealing add-on for Office 365.

 

[SteveJUAE]

I can't say other than my Samsung Mobile sych going to a new directory structure that I have any real issues with Onedrive over my 3 laptops, but then I do not store anything locally and treat it like a work server

Dropbox is just dam annoying with false nag screens saying I have exceeded my limit etc etc and please pay x/month

 

[maflynn]

So there seems to be a consensus in that, folks tolerate OneDrive and are using it, since they're already paying for it.

In many respects, I'm kind of there myself, why pay for an extra service when I'm already paying for something that includes the functionality but may be inferior

I'm still not sure if I want to move everything over to dropbox [for a 120 dollars a year].

 

[maflynn]

I stumbled upon an issue where Dropbox will disable your account and its customer support seems to ignore tickets

https://www.reddit.com/r/dropbox/comments/ffqe6r
Its a 2 year old thread, but quite a number of different people chiming in on how its happened to them and so far they've had no success. There's other occurrences, if you google it.

If anything that seals the deal, there's no way I'm willing to take a chance on losing access to my data.

 

[mi7chy]

There's probably more to that story likely breaking terms of service, abusing it for copyrighted content, etc. Still best practice to avoid single point of failure. I use SSD since it's robust, back up to HDD on every machine, across different machines and for cloud storage back up to both OneDrive and Google Drive.

 

[c0ppo]

Synology + pCloud here.
pCloud is great. Fast, easy to use, and one time payment. Multiplatform as well.

 

[coffee06]

I somewhat tolerate OneDrive but actually it’s gotten much better at syncing without issues for me lately. It could be that this user is just learning how to use it better too ?. Hard to beat for the price. Not the best, but the best value for me. I came from SugarSync, DropBox, and Google Drive.

 

[maflynn]

There's probably more to that story likely breaking terms of service

Yes, most certainly but other stories, and articles seem to indicate a number of false positives where the subscriber wasn't violating the TOS but dropbox thought they were.

Regardless, take the last post of that reddit thread. That person details how he lost access to 15 years of digital life. Its one thing to ban them but quite another to prevent them from retrieving their data.

For all of the quirks I have to deal with, I've not heard (so far) of MS preventing access to your data. Either way, this has opened my eyes and I'll rethink my reliance on Onedrive. Critical files that I don't want to lose, such as family photos will not go there.

 

[TechRunner]

I use the free tiers of OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox and pay a buck per month for 50GB of iCloud. Honestly, they all do what I need them to, but none without the occasional hiccup. If money was no object, I'd probably pay for and use Dropbox exclusively as I prefer their interface/ease of use over the others, but given that I use a hybrid local/cloud backup approach, and my storage needs are very small compared to most, I really haven't seen the need to invest that kind of money into it.

 

[skaertus]

So there seems to be a consensus in that, folks tolerate OneDrive and are using it, since they're already paying for it.

In many respects, I'm kind of there myself, why pay for an extra service when I'm already paying for something that includes the functionality but may be inferior

I'm still not sure if I want to move everything over to dropbox [for a 120 dollars a year].

I guess that one day Microsoft will figure out how to sync properly with OneDrive. We are paying for it as part of the Microsoft 365 subscription. It makes no sense to subscribe to another service instead of demanding Microsoft to fix the one we are already paying for.

 

[maflynn]

It makes no sense to subscribe to another service instead of demanding Microsoft to fix the one we are already paying for.

I think if a service like dropbox offers clear advantages to a built in service that is included in a different subscription, that can make sense. I don't disagree that we ought to hold MS accountable, and like I said, I've not incurred anything catastrophic, just quirks.

Back before windows 10, I'd say it was mostly useless, the problems I had were show stoppers, but things got a lot better with windows 10. I just run into odd things like I mentioned above.

These conversations are useful, because it helps me think through why I want to do it, and forces me to step back and analyze and research. This has brought me to the conclusion that right now Dropbox isn't a solution for me

 

[Fomalhaut]

Like many here, I have a 1TB OneDrive quota with my Microsoft account, and I used to have a similar amount on DropBox until their storage tiers and pricing drove me away. I basically need about 500GB and was OK paying for 1TB at a reasonable price; DropBox now has nothing between 200GB and 2TB, so I would be forced to pay a premium for something I'll never use. No doubt their business model is based on just this - sell 2TB plans, counting on the fact that the majority of their customers probably don't use more than 1TB, so they can sell the same storage twice.

This is irritating because I found DropBox to be a much better experience than OneDrive (or Google Drive & iCloud, although both have improved recently).

My main issue with OneDrive (on the Mac at least) is that with large numbers of files (I have c. 400,000), it gets completely bogged down with syncing, often never finishing or just getting stuck. It works better with smaller file sets. I've reinstalled multiple times on different machines and tried all the tricks, but have concluded that it just doesn't well on Mac. It's a bit better, actually quite usable, on Windows machines.

I now have a hybrid approach: I use my free quota of DropBox which has about 10GB of quota for my current work files (mostly docs and code, so 10GB is actually fine for all my work in progress). For 2nd tier storage, I use Google Drive with file streaming (work account and a personal one), and pay for 200GB. For backups and infrequent access data, I use OneDrive as on online archive, and generally avoid the macOS OneDrive client for the aforementioned reasons. I either use OneDrive's web interface or a 3rd party tool (Cyberduck) to do file transfers. One caveat is that OneDrive throttles file transfers using 3rd party tools, so you can't copy dozens of GB in one go. I think this last point may be part of the problem with using OneDrive with large file sets - the APIs seem to get overwhelmed if hit with thousands of files at once.

PS I had a chuckle to read that a Macrumors moderator "doesn't really use Macs any more"

 

[maflynn]

PS I had a chuckle to read the a Macrumors moderator "doesn't really use Macs any more"

I used too, but I do have a large compliment of other apple tech in my house

 

[Jay-Jacob]

I have Onedrive but don’t use it for some reason.

As I have a Synology NAS I use Synology Drive and Synology Photos and use their backup solution in the cloud which cost less the £10 a year, but it does have initial setup costs.
Main reason for me its used for Timemachine, music, personal data, runs my CCTV. Its an all in one box for me.

What backup solution that cost less £10 a year? I also have Synology NAS (I am new at this) and I can see their backup cloud solution C2 cost quite bit.

 

[mi7chy]

Maybe try a third party app? Haven't tried myself but this one seems to be brought up.

https://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbpro.html

 

[skaertus]

I think if a service like dropbox offers clear advantages to a built in service that is included in a different subscription, that can make sense. I don't disagree that we ought to hold MS accountable, and like I said, I've not incurred anything catastrophic, just quirks.

Back before windows 10, I'd say it was mostly useless, the problems I had were show stoppers, but things got a lot better with windows 10. I just run into odd things like I mentioned above.

These conversations are useful, because it helps me think through why I want to do it, and forces me to step back and analyze and research. This has brought me to the conclusion that right now Dropbox isn't a solution for me

OneDrive is good enough, but occasionally I have some syncing problems.

Dropbox alone, for one user, costs double what the whole Microsoft 365 suite, including OneDrive, costs for 6 users. It does not make any sense unless you absolutely need syncing to be perfect.

 

[Fomalhaut]

OneDrive is good enough, but occasionally I have some syncing problems.

Dropbox alone, for one user, costs double what the whole Microsoft 365 suite, including OneDrive, costs for 6 users. It does not make any sense unless you absolutely need syncing to be perfect.

I agree. DropBox has given me the best results, but they is no longer good value from a cost/GB perspective. Syncing happens in less than 5 seconds in most cases (unless doing a first sync of a large file), whereas OneDrive would often take *minutes*...and sometimes never even finish.

Also, on my Macs at least, OneDrive is CPU hungry while syncing, and given the long sync-times, I would not open it by default. When you do want to sync something and open up OneDrive (especially with Finder integration enabled), it again often takes minutes to log in and get started. It's totally unacceptable as a fast file-sync tool - for me at least. I have a second smaller OneDrive account with a couple of GB for small files, and this works OK. It's not as fast as DropBox, but gets there in a few tens of seconds.

I actually like Google Drive better these days than I used to, although they have messed things around by changing products between "Google Drive", "File Streams", “Backup and Sync” and whatever it's called these days. For general backups it's pretty solid. One good feature is the ability to sync folders outside your "cloud" folder, i.e. outside /Users/<user>/DropBox | OneDrive . I think the others are doing this now as well, but not in the free tiers.