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Moving or Copying Files: Painfully Slow, Loss of Data
Hello All! Our company transitioned over to SharePoint Online about a year ago. One of the largest complaints I have to date, is the time it takes to move or copy files. In cases of one or t...
If you're using "Open in Explorer" I think that may be part of the issue, and I'm assuming that you're using Internet Explorer. From personal experience I never really got on with the piece of functionality. It worked well back in 2007 when I first used it, but now there are much better options available.
Option 1 - Move To
When you visit a document library in the modern experience, you can click on the ellipsis against the document and select move to (see attachment "Modern-MoveTo.docx". In Figure 1, you can see the option to move to, and then in Figure 2 you can see that you have a number of options to either move it to OneDrive for Business or to another SharePoint site. When I tested this with a document of approx 1mb it took about 5 seconds to get itself warmed up and then do the move.
Option 2 - OneDrive Sync
The alternative option which has been mentioned before is to use sync (see attachment Modern-Sync.docx). In Figure 1, you can see the ability to Sync your library to your local file system using the OneDrive Sync Client. By hitting the sync button, you'll see it connect to your sync client (Figure 2), and then it will be available from your Windows Explorer windows (Figure 3). Once it's been synced, you can copy and paste documents between synced libraries in the same way as you would with normal files. Again this took only a few seconds to copy, paste and sync between the libraries.
I hope this approaches are useful and that they work. If not, please let us know and we'll see what else we can come up with.
Hi Hillary,
I am assuming you are uploading files to SharePoint. In that case 46 MB in 30 mins is very slow.
Do you upload files via the browser or via explorer view?
Are the files very small (e.g. emails of a few kB each)?
Are you uploading files to a remote location (e.g. other continent) where network latency may negatively impact throughput?
What is a large file? is that 100 MB or several GB's?
ODFB is an option but it means you will have a local copy of the files which needs to be removed (in the proper way) at some point in time. In case you just want to upload files this is cumbersome.
There are plenty of tools to help out. See e.g. https://directory.collab365.community/office365-sharepoint/office-365-migration-software/
My company has developed a browser-based solution (listed as SLIM Companion Migration Manager) to address upload issues by using parallel processes.
Paul (SLIM Applications)
Hi Paul de Jong,
We actually arent uploading files to SharePoint - the users are moving files within SharePoint.
Currently our users prefer the "open in explorer" functionality - so they are copying files from one location to another in this setting. This is where all the slowness is occuring. I have tried to copy and move from the browser - same problem, slow pace.
File size varies, some of these data moves have hundreds of files with various sizes - it varies alot.
All files are being moved to the same company location (Vancouver, Canada) - not external.
Large file - good question - every data move is different, but on average the total size ranges from 45 MB to 256 MB and the largest I have seen is 1.86 GB (this size is extremely rare).
How does the one drive sync work exactly?
If you're using "Open in Explorer" I think that may be part of the issue, and I'm assuming that you're using Internet Explorer. From personal experience I never really got on with the piece of functionality. It worked well back in 2007 when I first used it, but now there are much better options available.
Option 1 - Move To
When you visit a document library in the modern experience, you can click on the ellipsis against the document and select move to (see attachment "Modern-MoveTo.docx". In Figure 1, you can see the option to move to, and then in Figure 2 you can see that you have a number of options to either move it to OneDrive for Business or to another SharePoint site. When I tested this with a document of approx 1mb it took about 5 seconds to get itself warmed up and then do the move.
Option 2 - OneDrive Sync
The alternative option which has been mentioned before is to use sync (see attachment Modern-Sync.docx). In Figure 1, you can see the ability to Sync your library to your local file system using the OneDrive Sync Client. By hitting the sync button, you'll see it connect to your sync client (Figure 2), and then it will be available from your Windows Explorer windows (Figure 3). Once it's been synced, you can copy and paste documents between synced libraries in the same way as you would with normal files. Again this took only a few seconds to copy, paste and sync between the libraries.
I hope this approaches are useful and that they work. If not, please let us know and we'll see what else we can come up with.
Hi Matt Weston
thanks for the help, when i attempted to complete the "sync" option, the following error pops up and doesnt allow it to happen.
Any ideas?
