IT Experts, is MS OneDrive reliable?

[Val]

I'm tinkering with moving photos and docs to a cloud service. I currently have 1tb available on One Drive through my Office 365 subscription but reluctant to load to it and delete my files.

So, how reliable is it and i suppose how secure is it?

 

[drdel]

Google's version went off-line for a while t'other day so there can be server issues and with your own internet connections.

Generally you're pretty safe but keeping your own backup copies are a wise investment

 

[Lazkir]

Even if One Drive goes offline, their data centres have multiple backup systems and you can be 99.9% confident that your data/photo's etc can be retrieved.

In the event of a nuclear holocaust I'm not so sure, but I reckon you'll be past caring by then.

Short answer... yes!

 

[jusme]

In terms of not loosing them - they are as safe as anything stored can be. Much more so than private storage of any kind, unless you have an underground nuclear bunker. I prefer the google cloud storage, but only as I use there products and it mirrors well with that. If you use microsoft products then I wouldn't hesitate.

I use it as safe storage in terms of loss. In regards to hacking - i think that's always a risk, so I store nothing there I wouldn't have a problem anyone seeing

 

[Wilson]

I use it, don't have any issues, and I can get to all my documents from my laptop/IPad etc...

 

[PhilTheFragger]

The only problem with offsite storage is that your data is out of your control.
The company could hike up the price at any point and there is also an ongoing vulnerability with hackers, Microsoft are amongst the most well known IT companies and are also therefore subject to the most attacks, law of averages say that one day one will succeed.

Also moving from one storage company to another can be a pain, it can take days to upload 100GB of photos etc dependent on your broadband package and data limits

I use Carbonite, costs about £40 a year for unlimited storage, But I also keep a local hard drive up to date weekly as well

 

[Mudball]

Define Reliable?

The big providers like MS, Google are safe bets. The storage only ones like Box are at an interesting point in the industry. You will see them being takenover or going under. If you are only using for storage as part of O365, should be alright, dont expect things like photo editing et al. All of them generally have multiple backups and redundancy. You might see loss of service sometimes, but the data should be safe.

 

[jim8flog]

With the low cost of external drives I would keep an additional back up somewhere else. I have always believed in belt and braces where computers are concerned.

I keep a 500gb one next to the computer and another one in a firebox.

 

[ScienceBoy]

Have a single bay 4 gig drive at home that is also a media server. Should have bought the two bay but i have it backing up critical stuff to a spare drive on my PC.

It also backs up my google cloud files. All my photos are also backed up (not full res) for free with google photos.

Could be more organised but I feel safe enough. Really should have bought a 2 bay drive though... all the critical stuff is auto backed up in at least 3 places across apple, google, my PC and my local drive. All mostly automated, only have to press one button every now and again to choose to do a specific big backup.