Forum Discussion

L M's avatar
L M
Copper Contributor
Jan 31, 2018

SharePoint Library / OneDrive for Business Synced to Windows Server?

I'm looking to move my small business's documents to the cloud. I'm thinking of using SharePoint/OneDrive for Business through Office 365 Business Premium for this. The biggest downside is the lag between syncing files among various computers. Currently, we do most (but not all) of our work in the office on a LAN and access files on a local server running Windows Server 2012, so there is no lag. To be clear, my understanding is that the Documents section of our Team Site on SharePoint is probably the best place for this. It's okay for everyone in the company to access these files, so I didn't make a group.

 

Is it possible to sync the SharePoint / OneDrive for Business library to the Windows server as if it were a workstation, and then share that folder (and edit its files) via SMB on the LAN?

 

I'm wondering if editing the synced files via SMB would cause them not to be synced correctly. I'm concerned about this because https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/server-hosting that this setup would not work with their service due to the lack of "file update events". I wonder if SharePoint/OneDrive would have the same issue. Does anyone know or have any experience with this?

 

(Sorry for mingling SharePoint and OneDrive for Business, but there's so much crossover that I can't totally tell where one ends and the other begins. The same files show up in both places and use both apps.)

 

Thanks for any info or advice that might shed some light on this!

office 365
onedrive
sharepoint

4 Replies

  • Salvatore Biscari's avatar
    Salvatore Biscari
    Silver Contributor
    Feb 01, 2018

    Have you considered using Azure Files?

    See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-files-introduction

  • Loryan Strant's avatar
    Loryan Strant
    MVP
    Jan 31, 2018
    There are third-party tools like Layer2 or SkySync that can help with this.
    Ideally though if you run Windows 10 Fall Creators Update then you don't have to worry about syncing all files to all computers - just the files that people want to sync locally.
    • L M's avatar
      L M
      Copper Contributor
      Jan 31, 2018

      Thanks for your response.  Do you have any idea if the setup I described would work or encounter any problems, though?

       

      I'll look into the OneDrive File On-Demand feature that I assume you're referring to.

       

      The case in which the local server would be handy would be when a LAN-connected user wants to access a large (say, multi-GB) file without spending a bunch of time and HD space downloading it.  Without a copy on the LAN server, they would have to wait a while to download it or keep a synced copy on their workstation.