Forum Discussion
OneDrive is soooooooooooooooooooooo slow!
Why is OneDrive for Business so unacceptably slow? I've had a case open with Microsoft Support since February and to date they have involved several different teams, run numerous diagnostics and tests remotely on my computer, but still haven't been able to improve let alone resolve the very poor download speeds we are getting across the company. They can see the issue with their own eyes, and the under-performing tests are appearing in their diagnostic logs, but for whatever reason they cannot fix their own systems!
We have a fibre-optic leased line, 100Mbit over a 1Gbit bearer. Running a speed test, I am getting the full 100Mbit up and down, and yet when I am downloading a file (whether it's a few MB or a few hundred MB) from OneDrive, the download rate hovers between 500Kb/s and 800Kb/s.
Uploading the OneDrive for Business is fine - the upload rate is between 7Mb/s and 9Mb/s. It's just the download rate that's the issue.
Whenever any of our users save anything to OneDrive and the document is no longer cached, they have to wait for what feels like an eternity for the file to be downloaded before it can be opened. If they're opening the file via an application, then that application will hang and stop responding until the file has been downloaded from their OneDrive.
Before we switched to Microsoft 365, we hosted everything locally. Anything we tried to open would do so almost instantly. But using OneDrive feels like we have travelled back in time to the days of 56K/ISDN.
If this is how OneDrive has been designed, then it should not be labelled as a business service. There are other solutions out there from competitors that outperform OneDrive, and unfortunately if these issues are not resolved soon, I doubt we will be the only business who migrates away from OneDrive or even Microsoft altogether.
- I agree. OneDrive is ludicrously slow to get going. Once it's uploading it's fine, but it sits on 'Processing changes' for a LONG time. Sometimes over 5/10 minutes for one 1mb file...
- I am experiencing the exact same problem, started 2 days ago, takes forever to open a folder on OneDrive. I have shortcuts on the desktop for files and folders. My internet speed is pretty good. It is only the One Drive files and folders that are so very slow. Even when I click the OneDrive local folder, it does the same thing. So wanted to ask if they ever solved the problem, if yes, then what did they do or was it something that you did on your end?
rdulvy If you're using Windows 11 then it may be a File Explorer issue. Dropbox folders are **** awfully slow too. Also try turning off any AntiVirus software or similar to see if it makes a difference.
- No still on Win 10 as for me Win 11 is too irritating. Its not a File Explorer issue, everything zips through except when trying to open anything on OneDrive, either through the shortcuts or Online web access
yess.. i feel the same also..adhdave83 one drive is one of the worst user experience i've ever use. very slow and unstable. using on ipad is even worst. couple time have issue with working file offline. not reliable for true proffesional work.
adhdave83 This is not the experience I have had with OneDrive for Business in any of the organisations I've worked for where it can be faster than on-prem file storage You'll have to work with Microsoft to determine the characteristics of your unique environment. My guess is you have local services inhibiting sync.
That's your opinion, but it's not just me. There are loads of other complaints online when searching for OneDrive performance issues. Microsoft Support has just told me their senior engineers haven't bothered to respond to them since they last sent them more diagnostics over 2 weeks ago.
I suspect we're being throttled by SharePoint, as I can download a 100MB file at full rate first time, second time, third time... Wait a few minutes and try the same or a different file and it'll be downloading at somewhere between 400kb/s to 800kb/s, during which time there's no excessive bandwidth usage our end, and even running a speed test shows a throughput of 100Mbit both ways, and yet after the speed test completes (which was running during the slow download from OneDrive), the OneDrive download speed does not improve.
It's not a Windows thing either. I get the same behaviour when downloading files from one of our Linux servers hosted in a London data centre... The first few downloads are downloaded at a rate of over 100mb/s, but then suddenly the next lots of downloads are downloading at the same 400kb/s to 800kb/s rate.- It's not my "opinion". It's my "experience" from many organisations using OneDrive.
I've seen people blaming data centers for slow speeds when it turns out they've got custom SOE issues or security services running on their local machines which are interfering with all cloud services (OneDrive, Dropbox, Google etc).
- I feel you, I have a Teams SharePoint with maybe a Terabyte of files. Started syncing with OneDrive. It's brought my PC (i9 13th Gen, 64GB DDR4, with 500up/250down internet) to its knees for a week, and it's still running! To get anything done on my PC (even offline) I often have to go kill the OneDrive process, then restore it when I plan to go afk.
The sad part is, it's not downloading anything! It's just listing the files with the blue cloud thingy.- It used to be "fast" 4 years ago but these days it would be faster to send cd/dvd with the files to another continet instead waiting something to be synch (either uploaded or downladed). It is walid on both Win10 and macOS11. This is ridiculous since using web onedrive works perfectly fine (to upload or download). The same happened to Dropbox 8 years ago, it was fast in the past but then disaster strikes, using python for something like this is to cut of the legs to a sprint runner..
Agree, such a painful process compared to Laserfiche or box which is a shame as Office is a great tool. I love the way it backs up in the back ground its just you need to get your head around the fact that if you’re working on a file larger the 200mb its going to hang for a while. I use the Unreal Engine games engine so if I am going to work on a level of 30GB or larger I may as well sync it overnight it’s that sloooow!
