Replacing on-prem fileserver with Sharepoint.
Posted by ObjectiveApartment84@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 122 comments
I'm taking on a cloud migration project due to the whole Broadcomm VMWare pricing fiasco. We're a Small to Medium sized business and currently use a traditional file server. With our plans to move away from a traditional Domain Controller and switch Identity over to EntraID hopefully by next year, Sharepoint and AzureFiles seem like the best bet for this. For our business 90% of the file server is csv, excel, docx, and pdf files nothing crazy and in total I think our file server's storage is only 2TB, so cost and storage wise SharePoint seems like a great option.
Our users are pretty averse to change, so we plan to use the file explorer to have them navigate the File structure of the site we create for them, so that its as close as possible to the current shared drive setup. Have any other admins had any issues with this approach? I know there will be some headaches, but once everything is said and done, Is this a pain in the ass to manage, or has it been pretty smooth sailing for my other sysadmins?
Tempestshade@reddit
I am considering this but am weary of the sync issues. I understand Zee Drive can solve this. Does anyone have recent experience with them?
Awkward-Candle-4977@reddit
Use the Deferred ring version of the onedrive app
https://ma-zamroni.blogspot.com/2025/10/set-windows-office-onedrive-to-real.html#zzzonedrive
Welssoft@reddit
Great move. I've done this and users usually adapt quickly with minimal resistance.
The Pros: Native version history is a lifesaver. It’s amazing what you can recover with just a couple of clicks.
The Cons (The Human Factor): > * False Security: Users often start assuming everything is synced. I've seen people lose files because they moved them to a local folder or USB thinking it was still 'in the cloud'. Restricting external media is a good call.
Sync Headaches: While the web version is 100% flawless for co-authoring, the Desktop apps can still have occasional sync conflicts ('Murphy’s Law').
Overall, it's very solid for storage, just keep an eye on the desktop sync stability.
Awkward-Candle-4977@reddit
Use Deferred ring version of the desktop app
https://ma-zamroni.blogspot.com/2025/10/set-windows-office-onedrive-to-real.html#zzzonedrive
JuanTheMower@reddit
If you do decide to go down this route, if you value your sanity, I highly recommend using ZeeDrive instead of the built in OneDrive client.
ObjectiveApartment84@reddit (OP)
I’ll look into it, onedrive was testing my sanity today.
Awkward-Candle-4977@reddit
Use the Deferred ring version
https://ma-zamroni.blogspot.com/2025/10/set-windows-office-onedrive-to-real.html#zzzonedrive
Awkward-Candle-4977@reddit
No need to.
Just use the Deferred ring version. It's the real stable version
https://ma-zamroni.blogspot.com/2025/10/set-windows-office-onedrive-to-real.html#zzzonedrive
BloomerzUK@reddit
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
I wouldn't recommend moving to SharePoint wholesale - only areas that will benefit from coauthoring of documents and benefitting from additional metadata, automation etc. I tried migrating near 2TB of data for a new site we managed, and the syncing ended up being a nightmare as every user had a different experience when navigating through a Synced SharePoint in their OneDrive. They refused to use the web browser to access files.
I would personnally use Azure Files for bulk storage.
Different-Top3714@reddit
Then in 2 years they will be crying about cost over run and demanding OP move it all back onprem.
ObjectiveApartment84@reddit (OP)
Yeah, that's what I've seen online so far is that the sync is awful. Currently I'm just testing on my machine, and haven't personally experienced any issues, but I'm expecting some issues once its scaled out.
We do plan to setup azure files for some cad files and some specialized industrial equipment, so it shouldn't be a huge deal if this doesn't work out and we need to use that.
Fatel28@reddit
Sync works great if you're under the 300k file limit. If you get anywhere near it.. good luck
Rivereye@reddit
This here so much. Though, Microsoft is putting out in public preview the ability to sync 1 million files instead of 300k, to there may be some relief there.
Fatel28@reddit
Would be great
It's kinda shitty, so many sysadmins fall into this trap because "I moved a small share to it and it works great!"
And then they migrate the rest, and it's an unmitigated nightmare.
We (MSP) have obtained at least two customers because their last MSP did a lift and shift to SharePoint and the experience was so bad they decided to just find a new provider lol
TaiGlobal@reddit
So did they switch to you to continue the sharepoint disaster or did you guys provide and alternative (hopefully better) solution?
Fatel28@reddit
One moved to egnyte, the other back to smb
rickside40@reddit
I just dont understand why Microsoft doesn't buy Egnyte and integrate it in their M365 stack. It feels like Egnyte is the missing link between legacy SMB and SPO.
Master-IT-All@reddit
Yes, the migrate to SharePoint is the biggest pain point for me on these migrations and onboardings of customers.
Customers get sold on the idea of copy/paste done migrations where the bad structure in a file server is moved to the cloud where its even worse.
Cloudraa@reddit
yeah we do a lift and shift but we always make the customer go through their files and sort out the old shit nobody uses first, we stick that on an archive drive for them and then sharepoint migration is chill after that
KAugsburger@reddit
That sounds like a nice improvement although that still is probably not enough for some orgs.
Valdaraak@reddit
Only on devices that "meet the requirements".
And I still expect it to crap out around 100k like the current one.
otacon967@reddit
That number has caused me so much grief. Many of these legacy NAS solutions are hundreds of terabytes after decades of cheap disks and on prem workloads. Migration wave numbers are absolutely crazy. And that’s not even talking about path issues with users that like to store files in crazy directory trees.
KaJothee@reddit
Wait...that's actual good news. Sucks to have a cap at all, but at least it's something.
Rivereye@reddit
Here's the thing, it's not a hard cap in that after 300K (on current setup) things stop working, its more of a soft cap where performance of takes a very hard hit when trying to sync above the limit.
KaJothee@reddit
Oh I'm aware. I get tickets if it gets to that point, so I treat it as a limit and choose other solutions for migrations.
whatdoido8383@reddit
Yep, this. We start to see issues around 150k files. Some computers suck too and sync randomly just stops working, even with much less content.
It's a constant pain and something we try as hard as we can to steer our user base Way from.
I'd say if they can't use SharePoint in the browser, find a different solution.
RabidTaquito@reddit
As someone with Libraries in the 20k-150k, it struggles with damn everything over maybe 1k files. Doesn't matter if you have high-speed internet or an amazing CPU, it's going to choke.
Master-IT-All@reddit
That's interesting. I've got a customer with a site with 760K files and while it eats butt for speed, it hasn't really choked.
Type of data?
RabidTaquito@reddit
The usual every day files you'd expect from an office. jpegs, office files, csvs, pngs, etc.
dontbethefatguy@reddit
Is that 300k per site or total?
Fatel28@reddit
Total for the client itself.
So if you have 2 sites, each with 150k, if you synced both of them to a single OneDrive client, you've hit the limit.
dontbethefatguy@reddit
Woof.
Fatel28@reddit
Microsoft has made it pretty abundantly clear SharePoint is not a file server, it's a collaboration platform. People just don't listen lol
TerrorToadx@reddit
Yup. From https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restrictions-and-limitations-in-onedrive-and-sharepoint-64883a5d-228e-48f5-b3d2-eb39e07630fa#numberitemscanbesynced :
"For optimum performance, we recommend syncing no more than a total of 300,000 items across your cloud storage. Performance issues can occur if you have more than 300,000 items, even if you are not syncing all items.
Support for syncing up to 1,000,000 items per sync instance per device is available in public preview for Windows. This preview does not support virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environments."
RabidTaquito@reddit
Clarifying what I think u/Fatel28 is trying to say, it's the total number of syncing files on the syncing device. If you have 2 Libraries, one with 150k files and the other with 800 files, but only sync the one with 800 files, there likely won't be any choking. But if that other 150k-file Library gets synced... well, I hope you're into choking.
INSPECTOR99@reddit
Is that TOTAL file count for the entire SITE, for each FOLDER, ??
Master-IT-All@reddit
That is almost always going to be down to bad SharePoint Site design.
Monolithic single sites as a straight move to SharePoint from file servers is the primary cause of issues.
ExceptionEX@reddit
the problem with sync'ing is horrible at scale in a way most don't remotely correctly test for, you need to test not only at file volume, but at the number of clients. Think about this, every file left open stays in a sync state, every user that want to look at that file now has to go through the complex sync lock map function on the back end.
You do far far better to use sharepoint via the web interface, all microsoft products in 365 have the ability to navigate sharepoint directly in app, without the need of a clients file explorer.
The biggest thing, is breaking up the data into proper libraries and using those as the root concept for permissions, you can be more granular from there, but properly setting this up will save endless headaches and heartache from the customer. Even if it is a pretty big paradigm shift.
gruntbuggly@reddit
For us, Azure Files ended up being what people would use. Sharepoint is where data goes to die, it seems, as people really do not like changing their workflows. If they're used to a drive letter, they want a drive letter.
You can give users the best tooling in the world, but they have to embrace the change for that to be useful.
chillzatl@reddit
Sync is fine. 99% of the sync related issues people have post migration are the result of a lack of planning around both how the people use the data (IE, good data structure ) and the limitations in the sync client.
TKInstinct@reddit
I tried to sync our 20tb file server and destroyed the permissions after I pulled my LAN cable because it wad taking over a week to migrate.
EduRJBR@reddit
Does Azure Files support authentication with Entra ID? I remember that some time ago you could only use AD, ADDS and Kerberos, with a message below these options telling that Entra ID (or maybe Azure AD back then) wasn't supported yet. I believe it was when setting permissions to that Storage Account (if that was the right name).
I only have a vague memory of it, but basically I could make the VPN part work well using Entra ID only, but would need AD somehow to share files. Apparently it was possible to use Kerberos with Entra ID if you disabled MFA, therefore not a real option.
Master-IT-All@reddit
You can only use Entra for identity if you also don't have Active Directory joined devices/users.
Windows users signing into a domain will get authentication prompts trying to access the files via SMB without ADDS integration.
-This doesn't mean you need Entra Connect and hybrid join, just ADDS integration which is a computer object in your AD that is used to create kerberos.
-With Hybrid you can sync Universal groups to be able to use the same group for setting the Azure RBAC and NTFS permissions.
nuditarian@reddit
"only areas that will benefit from coauthoring of documents and benefitting from additional metadata, automation etc"
Sharepoint handling of files is better than it used to be, but still not as straightforward, simple, pain free as an SMB file share. There are some illegal character gotchas that will trip people up too, file server is far more forgiving.
Accomplished_Buy5141@reddit
Yeah, if I were to do it again, I'd focus on Azure Files. I went with Teams and SharePoint Libraries. We came from mapped drives, so we used OneDrive to sync SharePoint to mimic that setup. It works fine until they needed to give someone outside of the Team access to the Team's SharePoint Documents. I'd end up having to move that to a SP Library. Over time it's starting to look like the data share on the old file server, except its SharePoint libraries, so we run into all kinds of issues with long file paths and nested directories (hello Finance!), and nested permissions.
I'd avoid using SharePoint, it's a poor file system.
Fallingdamage@reddit
We looked into Azure files. Then we looked at Azure files billing model.
We stuck with on prem file servers and VPN connections. We use sharepoint for acute projects and easy access to active projects, etc, but once the data gets stale we move it back to our file servers.
Speed-Tyr@reddit
Yep, the syncs for SharePoint or shortcuts for onedrives are so damn problematic.
MaxRD@reddit
This was exactly my experience with SharePoint about 10 years ago. Not sure if the syncing nightmare has been fixed since then. Back then users resistance to the web interface was crazy. YMMV
Skrunky@reddit
It’s come an incredibly long way. Sync on Windows 10 was not good. Since on later builds of 10 and 11 are mostly done. Sync on Mac… we don’t talk about that.
mallet17@reddit
If you want to draw the ire of your users, go for it. Sync issues galore.
Azure File Shares are the way.
Awkward-Candle-4977@reddit
Use Deferred ring version of onedrive app. It's the real stable version
https://ma-zamroni.blogspot.com/2025/10/set-windows-office-onedrive-to-real.html#zzzonedrive
Ill-Barracuda9031@reddit
I'm currently stuck in this nightmare. I wish I could use azure files but the most important users use tablets they refuse to be managed.
yojimboLTD@reddit
Make sure your site names are as short as possible.
Mind the site file recommendations/limits. Break shit up where you can.
Make sure you use OneDrive SharePoint LINKS, don’t sync to OneDrive.
Have users only create links for folders that they actually need vs whole sites.
Unfortunately for me 1 & 2 we’re not done (setup before I got there), but implementing 3 & 4 greatly improved things. It was hell before that.
walkalongtheriver@reddit
If looking at this thread hasn't turned you off nothing will.
I'm still not sure what the original intent of SharePoint was but it seems to suck at everything in my experience.
simple1689@reddit
Let me tell ya...restoring 250 GB / 90K files from backup into SharePoint took ~48 hours.
Jeff-IT@reddit
This is how I do it. SharePoint in the cloud, add a shortcut to their one drive.
Few notes:
1. If I recall OneDrive has issues syncing massive files. If users are trying to sync over 300,000 at once, it’s going to cause problems. I just read an article released today that they are releasing an uodate to fix this issue. Not sure on the details on that but it’s been a problem forever.
2. To get files to SharePoint, we installed the SharePoint Migration Agent and used that. Wayyyyyyyy faster than doing it manually
Splask@reddit
We have used ShareGate software for tenant migrations and local to SharePoint. It worked really well. Considerably faster than any other options.
JerikkaDawn@reddit
To pile on --- this comment says "add shortcut to OneDrive" which works fine. The key is making sure the user is doing it only at the folder (s) that they work on - not the top level of an entire library.
And don't use the "sync" button in SharePoint - in fact disable it. It's best practice and even Microsoft says to use "add shortcut to OneDrive" instead. The "sync" button causes most of the sync issues people report.
Master-IT-All@reddit
That's not correct, Microsoft has never stated this as official guidance.
It's also bad use of the technology.
Sync - When you want to have an entire Document Library folder tree on the local device. The default configuration is cloud storage with the option to keep files locally.
Shortcut - When you want to link to a deep folder in a SharePoint Document Library, or when you receive a sharing link (external or internal). The default configuration is cloud storage with the option to keep files locally.
The primary disadvantage of Sync is that it is Site level and could result in adding a lot of files for the OneDrive client to manage. The advantage of Sync is that it generally has a shorter local path and visually differentiates between Team/Shared data and My/User data.
Shortcuts have the advantage of following the user across device and showing under My Files when viewing online. They also have the advantage of being able to be very specific, so if you have a single folder in a massive site that you use, Shortcut, not sync.
Shortcutting a whole Site is madness.
IMplodeMeGrr@reddit
This doesn't work fine, it will quickly run into character limits and thus breaks the entire onedrive sync to workstations.
I strongly advise to not do this.
JerikkaDawn@reddit
To elaborate on my quote above, I don't care how deep "PayrollRecords" is, but when it's added to OneDrive, that's C:\Users\Userid\OneDrive - Org\PayrollRecords.
IMplodeMeGrr@reddit
You're under representing path lengths.
C:\users\fullfirst.longusername\OnDrive - company's full legal name, inc\
78 characters to just the base folder of 256 character limit via OneDrive, and then Sharepoint par parth names on top of it. You can't prevent it is the issue.
Legal team is what did us in. All their contracts folders and file names which cannot be shortened or modified.
GL.
sltyler1@reddit
Split by department and with using dynamic groups to keep permissions automated too.
ObjectiveApartment84@reddit (OP)
That's our goal. I inherited a mess and HR loves to invent brand new job titles out of nowhere so implementing robust rbac is rough.
sltyler1@reddit
Yea, department works best.
Jeff-IT@reddit
Yes Exactly. Every department has their own site, but IT handles permissions via Security groups
Skrunky@reddit
There’s a thread about this on r/sysadmin at the moment.
You’re right, keep actual synced data to a minimum. We achieve this by aching a Documents and Archive doc library per department. Documents contain current data, and archive is an online archive for everything else.
Keeps the sync index low and OneDrive happy.
I have also found businesses love co-auth and do really value it. The idea of getting rid of it from some is quite traumatic.
Weekly_Incident_920@reddit
I want to focus on the mention of Sharepoint site "sync" to OneDrive/file explorer.
We've noticed significant improvement when users stopping using the "sync" button and started using "Add shortcut to OneDrive". Supposedly there is a lot less metadata synching in the background and users definitely see far less sync errors.
An added bonus is that the shortcut method will follow you on any machine, whereas the sync option only places it into file explorer on that particular machine.
Overall the shortcut option is a lot more reliable than sync.
margaritapracatan@reddit
Make sure you set storage quotas in SAC. Drops 🎤
Expensive_Plant_9530@reddit
I would first identify what problem you’re trying to solve by going with Cloud storage instead of an on-prem file server.
If this is a cost savings measure, in the long run cloud is rarely if ever cheaper than on prem.
But if you’re committed, have at er.
Just make sure to thoroughly investigate your current config and how that will work in the new system.
We are still on prem and I will resist changing that as long as I work here.
Valdaraak@reddit
Sharepoint is not a file server replacement. It requires changing workflows and preventing people from syncing entire libraries to their local computer. You need Azure Files if you're looking for a more 1:1 file server replacement.
But not from an administrative one unless you completely change people's mindsets on how to access and use files.
Sp00nD00d@reddit
If this is solely due to VMware pricing and you're a mostly Microsoft shop, just move it to Hyper-V and save money and time.
mcgeeky@reddit
If you want to maintain a similar feel to the local file server for your users, you can map the SharePoint files to a network drive using a tool like ZeeDrive Map OneDrive and SharePoint as a Virtual Network Drive with ZeeDrive. It can help with the transition from on-prem file server to cloud hosted files.
I-Am-James@reddit
ZeeDrive is also fantastic performance wise, completely resolved sync issues for some of our larger clients.
PappaFrost@reddit
We did the same migration recently, it has been awesome. You may even get away with not doing AzureFiles. Sharepoint folders let you 'Add shortcut to OneDrive.' This creates a shortcut in the root of the person's OneDrive folder. So if the person knows where to look they are doing everything in File Explorer just like they were before with SMB shares. It would have been a dealbreaker without that.
Our biggest DEPT folder is only 150,00K files though. It sounds like other commenters ran into a nasty 300,000 item sync problem. Hopefully they will roll out the 1 million item limit soon for people.
Master-IT-All@reddit
Your design of one big site is no good, that may allow you to quickly shift data, but then you'll find a lot of problems. And clean up after is VERY VERY BAD idea. The last thing you want to do is move files in bulk in SharePoint after clients are syncing. The OneDrive client shits the bed when you do that.
SharePoint Sites should be specific and targeted.
So you should break out data into discreate work pods with discreate permissions at the Site level. And then Migrate data in discreate chunks.
So for this one customer I have only 300GB of data to migrate, but I'm creating approximately 40 sites to host that.
So the customer will have a landing page, replacing the default communication site. On that there will be links to Ops & Planning, Sales & Estimating, etc... Those are then Hub sites, and under neath that are the actual Team sites hosting the data.
So there will be sites for Ops & Planning that are based on the location/divisions. So we'll see Ops-NewYork, Ops-Chicago ,Ops-Toronto as sites we create. And the files are divided accordingly.
This then reduces the OneDrive sync load because someone in Ops in Chicago doesn't need to Sync the other two locations, reducing the file count from 100K to 33K.
Bodycount9@reddit
We tried replacing our file system with Sharepoint Online. First tried the one Sharepoint site to host all files and we used ShareGate to move the files over.
BIG MISTAKE!
Sharepoint wasn't meant to host that many files on one site.
So we are doing it department by department now. Every department gets their own site. Max size around 400 gigs of data per site but most are under 100 gigs.
Much better plan. And it's actually working out for us.
TheLungy@reddit
Hmm.
The most important part of this migration is the discovery stage. Meet with the key stakeholders to identify what can be simply deleted, what needs to be archived long term, and what is actually needed for daily operations/production.
Go by department, location, whichever is the easiest etc.
You want users to only be syncing down files that they actually NEED to be syncing from Prod.
OneDrive: Syncing ~300k individual files and folders can cause sync to break.
Personally, that number is WAYYY to high. Feels closer to like around 150k files, it's 50/50 on if it's gonna throw a fit or not one day. It may, it may not.
Example: User reports coworkers arent seeing their changes on SP. You remote in and check OneDrive, "✅Your files are synced", alright cool. You go into their OneDrive folder, halfway down the list the column for OneDrive status icons outright disappear. You see the OneDrive icones for the first 100 files in the list, but as you scroll down it just ... disappears.
All you can do is remove the shortcut and wait for that to process, reset OneDrive, maybe rebuild profile it's it's so borked it's best to just start over, and re-syncing and working through any file versioning conflicts.
Repeat, over, and over, and over.
Windows: 256 character limitation.
If the file path for your company is long "C:\Users\Username\OneDrive - Company Name Here Inc\"
You only have 205 characters remaining in the total file path, INCLUDING the file itself
If OneDrive hits that limit, Syncing breaks and forces you to action it and fix before it can sync pending changes.
When I say syncing breaks, it's for everything - not just the affected folder. You will get a constant popup with a red X until it's remediated.
SharePoint: Ensure auditing is enabled and versioning settings are not left as default.
If you leave things as is, every single time a user edits a workbook - it will create a copy of the file. (minor & major versions, I think minor is whenever like a cell is updated, major is when file is closed and fully syncs the "final" ver. up IIRC)
If you have any kind of files that are not MCSFT related (.CAD files, Videos, weird file types etc.) - if there are ever any changes, to make a "major backup" it copies the entire file as a backup.
So if you have a 4.7 Gb non-Office file that has edits made daily, SP by default keeps 500 major versions. I think you can do the math on that with how much space after a month.
I would:
Weeks worth of meetings, identifying what is needed, what can be archived, and what can be outright deleted and scheduling timelines.
Plan migrations going by department/locations using your preferred tool. (ShareGate paid is by far the best that I used, but SPMT also works and I think I saw options for File Migrations directly from O365 Admin center)
Conduct "lunch-n-learn" or similar training seminars that is recorded and easily accessible by end users on how to use OneDrive. Have documentation users can follow. etc
(You dont want a user wanting to remove a shortcut, going to the folder and right clicking -> delete vs. right clicking > onedrive > remove shortcut, as an example).
I would have two seperate sites if you do not have any good alternative long term storage solutions:
Dept1-INT = This has shortcuts enabled, this is where 99% of users will be working from.
Dept1-ARCH = Archival data that is rarely access, do not allow shortcutting and instruct users to use web interface or the Teams client. Only give key stakeholders access to this or managers so they can go in and pull whatever is needed.
If you have any questions I'm always game for a DM.
-=-=-=-=-=-
There is this recent post about updating OneDrive to support 1+Mil files. https://mc.merill.net/message/MC1294528
hlloyge@reddit
Why?
What is wrong with current setup, what do you plan to achieve by moving files away from your company and make them harder to access? You are aware that everything will be slower, yes?
JBear_The_Brave@reddit
Install migration agent on file server. Scan content, look for long file paths and other errors. Way easier than trying a robocopy or manually uploading all that crap at once.
I wouldn't just put the whole file share in one site/library. We have separate sites for the departments. Customer service, purchasing, etc. If there is site overlap between some users/departments just add them to the group. Shortcuts will break, if any of those excel sheets have other linked workbooks its gonna break. Luckily it tells you what workbook its looking for and you can just point it to the new spot on the SharePoint site pretty easily.
Reedy_Whisper_45@reddit
We have done this. Initially it was a bit of a pain, but experience has educated us.
Now the first thing I do when troubleshooting is check their onedrive queue. 90+% of our problems are the user being signed out or locked out. Solve that and their problems go away.
BudTheGrey@reddit
If you can afford having a product not in the MS ecosystem, in my experience Egnyte is a better on-prem file server replacement.
Skrunky@reddit
Have they answered the question of “How to we take backups of data stored in Egynte?”
It used to be always touted on r/MSP as the holy grail, but it always turned out people just ignored the backup requirements or had really janky syncs to a local NAS and then S3 storage backup from there.
foreverinane@reddit
Yes external replication is now a feature as of about a year ago and you could have always done a public Cloud connector or storage sync server and then back that up the cloud or however else you want to deal with that.
BudTheGrey@reddit
We haven't used Egnyte in about a year -- the new CIO is a serious cloud / SharePoint fan and will not consider other options. Our ERP pretty much has to be on-prem, so we have a VMWare infrastructure. For Egnyte backup, we had one of their cache VM appliances spun up at a couple of our sites, and I an elderly locked down Win10 machine with a huge HD using Robocopy for backup. Maybe a little janky, but it worked well for us. My understanding is that the high-end edition has snapshot capability now, but I don't know details.
ThecaptainWTF9@reddit
I’d probably suggest Egnyte over Sharepoint. SPO just… isn’t great imo. And Egnyte will or can provide a similar experience to on prem file server since it presents as a share anyways.
There are options of Egnyte that includes built in backup. Or atleast for the MSP version there is.
Wolfram_And_Hart@reddit
Don’t unless you have people that dont want to fiddle. We have a client that moves folders around on Friday at 4pm and her staff can’t find anything.
BlockBannington@reddit
We tried the same. Everyone hates it, most of all IT. It's shit.
ExceptionEX@reddit
Do not do this with sharepoint, it isn't what sharepoint is, and isn't what it is designed to do, and the results when doing it can be pretty nightmarish.
If you want this, then you should like skip sharepoint entirely and do azure files with SMB via a secure method.
But, if you want to bring the customer forward and open up a lot of modern options with collaborative edits and sharing then you should learn and implement sharepoint correctly using libraries and not trying to sync them to file explorer.
n3rdyone@reddit
Had an admin who did not understand the nuances of sharepoint go and move our 3TB internal software repository that was sitting on a netapp to sharepoint … so much fun!
Not only did half the programs have issues, the helpdesk was in flames due to dozens of users clicking “always keep files on my device” at the root level.
Godcry55@reddit
Just use OneDrive shortcuts? Separate libraries by department/sites. File server to SharePoint Online isn’t always lift and shift.
r_keel_esq@reddit
Do your users use Teams?
If so, you could encourage them to start using Teams site(s) as their recommended/preferred Document Storage Locations. Give it a few months, then lock down your existing file-shares to Read-Only and then power them down sometime after that.
55555thats5fives@reddit
This has to be a joke, no?
dotikk@reddit
Why do you say this? It honestly works really well for a lot of places. Smaller, sure. But definitely easier to explain that stuff for this “team” or just in another tab
55555thats5fives@reddit
It seems like a very disorganised way to migrate and mentions nothing of migrating old data
r_keel_esq@reddit
The point is to avoid migrating old data that's no longer needed.
Users are a bloody nightmare if you ask them "What do you need to keep". By getting them to start with a relatively clean-slate, you do away with someone uploading "Christmas Lunch Order 2013.xlsx"
When the old, on-prem machine is powered down, you retain your final backup so IF something is still needed, it can be recovered.
But make users responsible for their own data - they own it, not IT.
55555thats5fives@reddit
Thanks for the explanation. This had me realize my users have ruined me with their load-bearing "Christmas Lunch Order 2013.xlsx"-files
dotikk@reddit
It’s really not - it’s actually more organized. A sales team, project team etc. with subfolder structure under that. Yes you need to do some work ahead of time to plan out where most data is going to land, but it’s really intuitive for most users
55555thats5fives@reddit
To be fair the comment i responded to said nothing about working ahead before unleashing the users, which is why it seemed disorganised.
sambodia85@reddit
It also empowers the owners of the data to manage access. No more “can you add blah blah blah to this network drive.”
Phx86@reddit
While Teams back end is still SharePoint, I find the front end much more user friendly. It also makes more sense as you have Teams chat/team.
konoo@reddit
I am the complete opposite. We put everything in sharepoint because at the end of the day it's all Sharepoint and our sharepoint file users have always required less hand holding.
RabidTaquito@reddit
!! WARNING !!
If you have any repositories that will house more than like 10k files, your OneDrive sync will choke like Cheryl Tunt in the grip of a maniacal cyborg. It is going to be A W F U L.
The only way I would recommend this route with so many files is if you globally disable both the Library Sync and Shortcut features so that your employees are forced to use the web ui for file access.
DrMacintosh01@reddit
It’s really not that bad. All my users have at least a 6 core cpu and 16Gb of ram. The initial file sync takes a long time. But once the files are synced the incremental changes are very fast. Our biggest site currently has over 62,000 items in it.
Vichingo455@reddit
Why in the cloud and not opt for something else on-prem? There are alternatives to VMware, like Proxmox for example.
a60v@reddit
Do you like vendor lock-in? I hope that you have a redundant Internet connection, too.
Master_Direction8860@reddit
Woof…it was a nightmare for us…the syncing was all over the place…only a few users get their files synced I. Time. Why? Because their department site is minimal. Other user’s site, good luck and Godspeed..
Sentient_Crab_Chip@reddit
Does the Search feature in SharePoint actually work for you guys?
duane11583@reddit
question: do you have any high bandwidth users? you might need to special case that group.
example developers who pull thousands of source code files?
or do you have terabytes of high res jpegs used as inspection documentation pics? (we manufacture things and take digital pics of every thing all organized by by serial number and purchase order and job number for every product)
another example: bar code scanner you have 4 tera bytes of high res test images on the server. your regression test is to pull and decode every possible pic (4TB) in the database every night. and randomly by multiple users who launched a ci/cd automated build
and converting / compressing the 4TB of pics to jpeg is not acceptable it changes the test data the data needs to be exactly as it was read by the image sensor cause that is what we are testing. the IT department did that to us when they moved the data to a new server… pull the backup tapes and restore the files now please.
they also had a huge issue of transferring 4TB every night for no reason they thought… share point/cifs is horribly slow as fuck. they deemed we did not need that bandwidth.
ObjectiveApartment84@reddit (OP)
No, our highest bandwidth users AT MOST will work out of a shared onenote notebook. We have a piece of industrial equipment which pulls files from our file server currently, we're going to swap this to AzureFiles, and same with our Engineers and their CAD files.
Affectionate-Cat-975@reddit
Don’t use the Sync option mapping the shortcuts. Use the Add Shortcut to one drive. Using the Sync option can cause a problem if some genius renames the root library or the MS Team that can cause a fork in data.
I would recommend planning out a company site, and then mapping the Teams and how they will function. Become familiar with the folder and document library differences esp related to security.
Using mover.io makes the sync straightforward
bjc1960@reddit
We have bought 8 companies and have migrated everyone's 'Z drive" to SharePoint. In fact, one site is named "Contoso-ZDrive". (replace contoso with actual name)
It works reasonable well- many remote people, no file servers in remote offices, all good. Not perfect got not in my top 100 issues. Getting everyone's windows update consistently working is a bigger problem.
spoohne@reddit
Check out filecloud. Sharepoint with onedrive sucks.
Welssoft@reddit
Great move. I've done this and users usually adapt quickly with minimal resistance.
The Pros: Native version history is a lifesaver. It’s amazing what you can recover with just a couple of clicks.
The Cons (The Human Factor): > * False Security: Users often start assuming everything is synced. I've seen people lose files because they moved them to a local folder or USB thinking it was still 'in the cloud'. Restricting external media is a good call.
Overall, it's very solid for storage, just keep an eye on the desktop sync stability.
ksteink@reddit
Have you consider to migrate to a different platform? I have couple SMB clients running Proxmox. I have replaced AD servers with VM Linux Equivalent (i.e., Zentyal or UCS Server) and for Storage I use TrueNAS Scale (also VM with HDD Pass-through)
I keep local performance for file shares, don't tied up on subscriptions.
duane11583@reddit
oh here is another one.
do you have any users who create vms on their machine for test purposes?
i did and it demands i put it under “My Docs” which is on share point.
so several of us created a 500g vm hard drive image on sharepoint. ba ha ha…
you cannot easily delete it (think undelete) and so it blows up you sharepoint usage big time
smurphmyster@reddit
I’m three months out of what sounds like a very similar project. 400 users mostly office staff with 2 TB of files on a onprem file share. Super change adverse organization. Actually had a VP tell me that this would be the most difficult thing I ever did and I would go home crying some nights as that was their experience implementing a new HRIS a few years before I got here - because of how much people hate change and bad with technology the org is.
Depends what you want. Do you want to ‘lift and shift’ or do you want to implement a new tool.
We made an early decision to not recommend or even tell people about the file explorer integration. Let SharePoint be good at what it is and some of the benefits like metadata, file searching, etc. you only get through the online interfaces. We actually took a teams app first approach where we trained people to look through their files in their teams team.
Not gonna lie it was a tedious transition, we had to go department by department building custom transition plans. I spent the first six months showing departments how to do file cleaning and talking about file governance. We have an in-house learning and development specialist so I worked with them to put out what I thought was very good training and in the end people did respond to it well.
When all our file cleaning was done, I think we actually only transitioned 1.4TB of files. If you tell people right off the bat to use the file explorer integration they’re just gonna do the exact same thing that they’ve been doing with your file share. No real ownership of files, things that have been sitting around for 15 years and no one actually knows what it is.
Now there were a few months out, but I’m pretty happy with how it went. Tickets to helpdesk about file issues or down 75% last month. All in I spent 11 months transitioning the organization.
OkEmployment4437@reddit
SharePoint can work here, but I’d go in with the mindset that it’s a document platform, not a straight NAS replacement.
It works best when you treat it as team/document libraries, not one giant synced drive that mirrors the old file server. I would split the 2TB into sensible sites/libraries by department or function, clean up naming/path issues ahead of time, and simplify permissions so they inherit wherever possible. If you migrate a messy share with lots of unique ACLs, weird folder trees, and old habits, SharePoint will make that pain more visible, not less.
Biggest mistake I see is syncing too much to too many devices. Don’t sync everything for everyone. Be careful with path length, special characters, large library/file-count behavior in OneDrive sync, and any legacy apps that expect normal SMB semantics.
For Office docs/PDFs/CSV used by humans, it’s usually fine if the structure is sane. For apps, bulk file churn, weird locking behavior, or anything that truly needs a file server, Azure Files or some other SMB option is usually the better fit.
Definitely pilot one department first before you commit to a full cutover.
shadhzaman@reddit
I have tried using it, and you have to see the scope and impact first
With sharepoint/OD, it's not a web based file sharing utility, its a two way sync system as well.
That means the more you put on a single thread (more files, larger files) the more likely chance of it breaking.
Easy way of migrating one time maintaining the structure is to create junction of the shared root inside onedrive and bam.
After that, if the regular users are using a few hundred megabytes, and maybe a thousand or so files at a time, and setting up sync to the entire 2tb you will be fine. If your users are fine with just using the browser to open the files (like opening the office based files like excel from sharepoint and then just using excel's file history for the next time), and just downloading, modifying files to reupload - you are golden, and gonna have zero issues. If they are trying large files, and large number of files, both - you will definitely have issues, but one of them, you might have issues or not, but if you do, simply restart onedrive and try again.
(in my use case, I am doing 600gig now, we started at 800. Some files were really enormous, and everyone was syncing everything, and we had to tell people to dial it down to avoid sync issues(
chillzatl@reddit
Successful, meaning both the post-move user experience and full user adoption, on-prem to SharePoint migration starts with the data structure. While some business can simply map shares to doc libraries and call it a day, you should never assume that will work. You also need to get away from this idea that you can hide the changes that come with SPO from the users. You cannot and the harder you try the more it will blow up in your face. The users need to be involved. You need to pilot small datasets with users to figure where their stumbling blocks may be and work through them as you push towards a full Migration. You need to treat the entire thing as a consulting engagement and not a systems administrator file migration.
savageXent-Tr00blxx7@reddit
nice idea, I've been through the same thing myself, about 8tb of data distributed across 10 small customers. No issues with the migration tool. I built a desired file structure in sharepoint together with the customers and a shortcut was synced. I haven't had any technical problems from the customers yet.
Took me about 1 month.
TerrorToadx@reddit
Hf with sync issues