Forum Discussion
one drive syncing is too much slow
zackgeek2 I have read this ticket with interest. I agree with you, there does not to be any clear answer to your question anywhere.
To learn that there are several limits on what can be put into OneDrive is interesting among which no more than 300k files (I was aware of the <=10,000 files in a folder limit having come unstuck on that on one occasion (sadly the application (not ours) requires that all files be in a single folder, so for that we have to remember to reconstruct the original folder before trying to use it locally), file sizes of <=300KB, yet one user mentions a ppt file of was it 1.5MB uploading slowly. My thought then was that is quite a small file, regularly seeing ppt files in the upper tens, into the 100s of MB all of which are uploaded unremarkably into OneDrive. We have 1,250,000 files in OneDrive, well over the 300k limit mentioned here. I have also seen 'instantaneous' and automatic, updates to Excel files in use by two users. This all seemed to be very good news for OneDrive.
Sadly, I had left the local OneDrive folder in the default location on the boot drive, which happened to be an SSD. SSD failures are not unknown but at least provide warning. It did, but the warning was not noticed until the machine was rebooted, at which point it failed. Never mind, all of the files are in OneDrive., and a new HD and a clean rebuild of Win10 was something I had longed to find both time and courage to do. The opportunity was provided. I approached this with great confidence that all would be well. It was not, none of the problems seen one the way are relevant here, until we come back to OneDrive.
Having installed OneDrive the local folder had to be moved to another physical disk in the system, which was quite straightforward. OneDrive now starts to synchronise. 150GB (not even the full 1TB) should not take very long. Whilst it does that the other required applications, the latest builds for which were lost when the original HD failed) may be installed from the previous builds, registered, and then updated. That was a little tedious, but until the data is restored; hey-ho.
This is the second day since the synchronisation commenced. It has not completed. The current download speed is 37,7KB (the minimum if supposed to be 50KB). I have seen it in the last hour or so run at a magnificent twice that speed, and checking again since stating to type this sentence it has become 54,7KB. I think that is, shall we say to be generous, 200MB/h = 5GB/day. Well, 30 days to download 151GB is not too bad is it? It has taken us at least two years to upload that. I think it might do slightly better than 30 days, as the report is full is 'Downloading 19GB of 150GB at 60.0KB/s, 910,000 files remaining.' On the basis of the number of files (irrational to use that) it suggests about six day in total. On the basis of 19/150 it suggests about 18 days. Whether it is six, 18 or 30 days, the download speed is not acceptable for a restore operation.
What I did not mention in the foregoing, though how much of an impact it has I do not know, is that the OneDrive synchronisation is presently running through a series of folders whose file numbers approach the limit of 10,000. I presume (perhaps that should be hope) that after each file copy operation a validation check is performed. If the file validation is combined with a folder validation, then there may be a significant impact.
The option to amend the registry mentioned by someone else is scary. Is there certain evidence that this will work? What documentation does Microsoft provide to show what the key and its possible values do and mean?
What evidence is there that 'Don't limit' on the OneDrive>Settings>Network tab sets up throttling, whereas 'Adjust automatically' does not. In any even there is no Adjust automatically for download.
Those who post this sort of suggestion, which my be exactly correct, often fail to explain what the options actually do. Do they know or is this just because 'I have seen it', but without proper scientific examination. 'I made this change, and it worked' but fail to report that on the way they made another seemingly unrelated change. Or it may be an innocuous phrase 'you must reboot after making the change'. Was it the change or the reboot that worked? They also fail to cite documentation provided by the manufacturer. It is the car breakdown problem often: AM buys a new car in Arizona and drives it away. On the highway it comes to a stop. He calls the retailer. They will collect the car and take him home. Three days later, having stripped the engine and rebuilt it the car still refuses to start, but AM calls in. As they apologise the receptionist shouts: Don't stand out there, bring him in and give him a drink!' On the word drink, a young lad slips away...
The lessons we learn: Read the manual, and manufacturers instructions. Don't assume the other person has done that, or even knows what you are talking about. Certainly do not a him to change the plugs when the battery is flat, or the gas tank is full of fumes.
I am sorry, I do not have an answer. I have toyed with the idea unticking 'Always keep on this device' and working slowly through the OneDrive folders added them (or groups of them) in turn to improve the download speed, but that requires constant monitoring, and my time is better used than in doing that.
The absence of a local copy is manageable for most things. Most applications can work directly with the cloud files.
I see that you posted your question over two years ago. The replies indicate that not a lot has changed, and they continue to come with the latest prior to this being in July 2022. I hope your problem has been resolved.
Thank you to those who suggested other options, such as Dropbox. I work with others who use DropBox, but have not really considered it for myself. Perhaps I should - but not until the OneDrive synchronisation has completed! The SharePoint synchronisation tool is an interesting option, but why should it be necessary? It is not a OneDrive solution. It is like putting your car on a truck to get it home instead of putting gas in the tank.
Kind regards
The limits are easy to find (Google "OneDrive limits") and are published here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/64883a5d-228e-48f5-b3d2-eb39e07630fa
Mike Williams Bandwidth is very important but I think that what many people don't think about is how quickly the bandwidth can be used up if many people are syncing many files. A 500 MB file may not seem large but if it changes and 10 people are syncing that file it becomes 5 GB of data through your internet and local network. Multiply that by dozens of files and you start wondering where all your bandwidth has gone.
I suspect that many people have problems with OneDrive because of the way they are trying to use it. They seem to think that if syncing a few files is good then syncing all files must be better. Besides the wasted bandwidth and inevitable glitches from trying to have everyone sync everything, it is a huge security risk having many copies of important files on many different computers in various locations.
Back in the old days when we had all our files on local fileservers we would never have considered keeping a local copy of all files on each computer and IT would have put a halt to that pretty quickly. Now that we have syncing tools many people think they should be syncing everything.
There are two totally different problems here: some people complain about slow upload speed, other people about slow sync speed. I belong to the latter ones. I pasted a 300 KB PDF in a SharePoint folder, and it took 6 minutes to turn green. Until it was green, the file was not available on the web either. I can reproduce it every upload I do. My Internet connection has no issues at all. So it's a OneDrive client issue that needs to be investigated. Most of my SharePoint files are blue (only available through cloud connection), while 40,000 files are green in my OneDrive.
Microsoft, let my computer be your guinea-pig, we all need to fix this issue.- " I think that what many people don't think about is how quickly the bandwidth can be used up if many people are syncing many files."
Bandwidth is relative. I have worked in organisations where many thousands of people were using Office 365 yet the sync/download speed to the cloud is astoundingly fast because of the fantastic internet gateway. - I agree. One place where I worked had a department that force-synched their entire SharePoint site library to everyone's computers. They had 25 years' of files: 400 top-level folders, 100K files taking up over 100GB. Because they wanted to use SharePoint like a synced file-server they lost many of the benefits of using the cloud-based service.
Another place had staff syncing 400K individual files to their laptop. And so it goes on.... almost always it comes down to a complete lack of training and any planning around the migration from file servers to document libraries.
