Retention Policy and OneDrive data recovery

[Kamran Ahmed]

I'm in the process of configuring OneDrive for Business and was looking at how to setup the retention policy. I found you can setup a retention Policy in Security and Compliance>Information Governance and you can also change the number of days from 30 to a maximum of 3650 (10 years) in OneDrive Portal (Storage), what is the difference? Do i need to enable both for the retention to work? Does this change the way we restore permanently deleted OneDrive Data?

[#2]

The first option is for meeting compliance requirements, as in storing copies of deleted/modified documents, etc. The second one is just for deleted user's content, it doesn't guarantee data immutability.

[#3]

@Vasil Michev - Thank you for clarifying.

If the first option is enabled do we really need the second option? I would expect the second option to be covered by the first.

I have created a retention policy protecting locations Exchange Online, SharePoint and OneDrive, if i recover an inactive mailbox will OneDrive data also recover part of the restore?

[#4 · Accepted solution]

The first option requires specific licenses, the second one is free. And as I mentioned above, they serve different purposes, namely if you need to meet compliance requirements, retention policy is the way to go. And no, recovering Inactive mailbox doesn't do anything with regards to the OneDrive for the user.

[#5]

@Vasil Michev - Thank you for the prompt reply. I have done some testing and confirm OneDrive data is not restored.

[#6]

I'm curious about how the retention policy affects the process of OneDrive data recovery. If I accidentally delete some important files from my OneDrive account, would the retention policy affect my ability to recover them? Would I be able to restore the deleted files if they were subject to the retention policy?

Additionally, I'm also interested in learning more about the use of third-party hard drive recovery software like for OneDrive. If the built-in OneDrive data recovery tools do not work, can I use third-party software to recover my deleted files? What are some of the best third-party data recovery software options available for OneDrive, and how do they compare to the built-in recovery tools in terms of effectiveness and ease of use?