[Demo Heavy] Replace your file server with SharePoint Online and OneDrive 2018 

I agree - best discussion of this topic ive seen presented !

Just an update - I ran the migration last weekend, using the migration tools which I found quite easy to use (much netter than drag and drop for large numbers of files). Synchronised each of the users PC's and now they can see the company data in file explorer, just as if it's on a local or network drive. I am reasonably competent on IT (former IT manager) so if you are not sure then I would recommend asking for advice from a suitably experienced support professional. This is already paying for itself, without even looking into the other benefits of Sharepoint and Office 365. Thanks again Wayne for giving me the confidence to give it a try!

better not netter

@netoopaulo. Oh my god. YOU ARE THE BEST!!! YOU GET IT!!!! One of the wisest, most humble comments I have ever seen from an IT person here. Whoever you work for, be that a company as internal IT, or with clients as an MSP is VERY LUCKY to have you.

Wow! Ping! Great to hear from you!! Thanks for the kind words my friend!👍👍

Thanks Patrik! In our practice, we enable MFA for every single user at a client, as well as enable Cloud App Security, Office 365 ATP, and Windows Defender ATP, and Microsoft Intune - in addition to requiring the client's computers be upgraded the latest build of Windows and Office. We wouldn't do a project without MFA to be sure. I take the position that everyone's passwords have a high chance of being exposed wherever they have accounts, so MFA is imperative. I even made another video here on the channel recently about it. This particular video is about helping people mentally bridge the gap between files servers and moving to SharePoint Online and OneDrive, and understanding the superiority of it as a document management solution. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks Adam! From my experience, this is a rare situation, and if OneDrive is not syncing, the user can see that near where the name of the files is at. They should be trained to ensure that before they close out the doc, that it is saved and not just rely on Auto-save. You could indeed be working on a document and look up at the "last saved" and it shows hours/days ago if you don't pay attention. If your user makes sure to hit the "save" button and check that it is sync'ing, they will be in good shape - just a training issue for something that is a rare issue altogether. That would be my input on that. Thanks for commenting :)

@@Xerillion Good to hear that it's a rare situation. Trying to think of end-user-ness things that could go wrong to make it as fool proof as possible. I know this isn't by design, but do you know if it's possible to use OneDrive client for the Windows Explorer experience, but to essentially not allow any local cache, forcing every file to be opened from the server directly? I know the file has to come down locally to be worked on, but then when then when it is sync'd back up, it is released from the local cache also...

@@adamlaw837 I'm not aware of a way to do that. If you want to go foolproof, then you would have people launch files direct out of Teams or SharePoint Portal, or train them how to check-in/check-out documents; and this is where the GREAT DIVIDE happens with companies and IT managers - both are trying to take M365 and do 1990's IT, when in fact the 2019 way of doing IT requires a more sophisticated approach, and a mindshift, and really, for the end-user (and the IT manager), some training.

Hi! Thanks for the compliment! In this video I was just using Skype on my Surface Pro-which I wouldn't recommend to make videos, but I'm an IT guy, not a video guy 😃 and so this is what was what I was able to get working at the time. There is so much that goes into this beyond the camera and software as well. I'd recommended finding a course online that has a few hours of technical content to get you started for making videos. And- of course, to just gotta start and make your mistakes and learn 😃

I know im 9 months late. Within a Team Library click "syncronise" and it will appear

Oliver, completely agree with you! I wish we could even rename it to something friendly to the user.

Thanks Jose! I think your idea is completely fine, and we have implemented such a setup plenty of times. The thing to look out for us retention policies are set at the site level, not the document library level. That's the only gotcha I'd keep in mind.

Hi Jesper, based on your comment, I would recommend building your file shares in Teams rather than SharePoint. You can't change the name as you though, that would be nice, and I'm confident Microsoft will eventually give us a way to change the display name to whatever we want. The names using Teams though is friendlier than SharePoint - if that make sense.

I guess where I'm going is that Sync and Add Shortcut both kind of expand the ability to get a data. And it's easy to accidentally delete, or download and carry around lotsa files on your device, but they may not even be aware. I suppose at least if you drive them away from File Explorer and more towards the App (Teams, SharepointOnline), then you only need to worry about the access and not the local storage of files. Is there a way to enforce only ever being able to use Files on Demand? And not giving the option of having the whole thing downloaded on your comptuer? Or is that just training? THanks for the awesome video!!!

Thanks@@mattashfield2567 ! Yes, you can set restrictions if they can download the whole thing, though I don't think you can just specify Files on Demand, though not sure how that would work since you need that part in place to have any sync. People want to use File Explorer and it is the best way right now to at least get the files migrated without the users constantly complaining about how the "new system sucks", ect. And then from there, get a micro-video training system in place for Teams, OneDrive, ect.

Hmm, not sure what you mean?

Thank Shaan! My recommendation would be to look into the file migration tools inside your Microsoft 365 portal. The thing is this though...you'll get the tools, but you won't get strategy and "things to watch out for"...and "this thing doesn't quite work like you think it will" type of guidance. This is what holds IT managers back from doing this...they only work on a single network and they don't get the practical experience of doing these types of migrations over and over to actually move their system as they don't want to jeopardize their jobs. That is all understandable, but it just keep them frozen from doing the migration. I recommend finding a Microsoft cloud partner in your country with the Gold Cloud Productivity competency. I wouldn't try this on your own.

And also, maybe you have separate videos on this already, but how are you actually moving the data before cutting over? Is the SPMT or Migration Manager that Microsoft offer worth looking into? We have deadline of August 30th before the customer's file server is shutdown so need to formulate a plan of action. Any help would be much appreciated!

We use various tools depending on the situation, but starting with SPMT would be recommended.

I can help you with part 1 of your question: you get 1TB with your tenant and 0.5GB/subscriber pooled together for shared storage and each user gets 1TB of personal business storage (i.e. personal folders, home folders, ect.). After that it is $200/TB/month. Whatever you choose to retain with your retention policy will also count towards your total storage. The other part of your question is a huge professional undertaking and there isn't great content on doing it - and Microsoft's tools and the Office 365 tenant are a moving target: take 6 months and a ton of hard work to put a video together, and it will be outdated and wrong by the time you publish it - and that is why we have held off making a DIY course for IT Pro's on that matter - even a pain one. You are better off hiring a partner to get you migrated over, and teaching you some admin - and you take it from there, than trying to learn your first cutover by doing it with your employer - totally not worth the price you'll pay in terms of the hit to your career. You don't have to use us, but find a partner you like to work with and work with them, and then take it over youself; that is the smart way to do it.

Thanks! My suggestion would be to turn on the PC backup feature in OneDrive they will backup My Documents. I mention this in my updated 'files in Office 365' video I posted this past January.

@@Xerillion Thank you for replying to my question. I have view the clips you mention, but still have not got clarity. The instructions you show still have the “Documents” folder and "One Drive - Company" as separate locations. I was wanting to point the "Documents" folder location from "C:\Users\Username\Documents" to a Documents folder in the path of the One Drive folder. This way if the user saves to the default "Documents" folder, it is still stored in One Drive.

Scratch that, I see now what you mean with the backup option.

Thanks AR! Per your question, they can work on their drafts directly in the SharePoint Share (i.e., the document library).

Thanks Jasim! SharePoint won't work for the large CAD file scenario you mention. For that you'll need Azure File Sync. We'll have a video on that in the future. If you are in the US, you can talk with our team about a solution.

Yes, definitely. My only warning would be that it isn't you'll be able to look up in 30-60 minutes online and get something you feel confident about, and if you hire a consultant it will be something that will cost in the "thousands" vs. the "hundreds", and even finding someone will be a challenge. I'd focus on Teams rather than SharePoint.

Thanks Onda! In response to your question, files on a file server - in the traditional sense - have no security controls. Once someone has access - they can do whatever they wish with the files. So, the fact that the files require a "live connection" and not a "sync'd connection" is no real control or security...it's just the way people have always done it. Further every single time we setup a client's network we use Microsoft Intune to enable bitlocker encryption on a computer, and then turn on conditional access with Azure Active Directory to enforce that this is configured. Bitlocker solves the problem of data on a lost or stolen laptop and it comes with Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise.

Thanks! It was created in SharePoint and what we'd recommend for companies moving if file servers. Though, these days at Xerillion we do all our document sharing and management in Microsoft Teams.

At this point in my consulting practice, is recommend putting your files in Teams. The backend is still SharePoint, but Teams is so much more straightforward.

Thanks Olly! In my next video coming out, I present my screen as the whole screen. I finally figured out how to do that in a way I can stay on the screen. I also figured out how to make the display clearer. This video here was made 2 years ago when I had no idea what I was doing, and it was recorded in 1 take using Skype for Business :)

My first question to you would be, do you really want to move *ALL* 4TB of files? Without knowing your subscription count, and which subscriptions you would be getting of Microsoft 365, 1GB of storage in SharePoint is 20cents/month. SharePoint is the most expensive storage you can purchase in the Microsoft cloud. It is an incredible document management system with capabilities that are *far superior* to legacy Windows server file shares. BUT...IT managers are *NOT* looking for advanced features of SharePoint...they want to just get rid of their file server. 4TB of data in SharePoint will cost your company ~$600/month, or nearly $7,000/year (you'll get 1TB with your tenant and an allotment per subscription). Assuming you enable retention policies, each retained version of files edited by your users will also count against your storage...meaning as people make edits to documents, you'll incur additional storage costs. If you want to bring 4TB of files, I'd get budget approval for at least $9,000/year in your case. I'm guessing your CFO won't be interested in that. So, my advice is use this project to CLEAN HOUSE with your files. We have a whole strategy around that when we engage with clients, but it isn't something I can just type out here unfortunately.

It depends on where you are starting and how motivated your company is to incorporate a modern workplace. In our case we went from a sales folder on a traditional file server to a sales document library in SharePoint, then moving to a sales Team with it's own Files tab. We no longer used the sales document library because Teams is so much more efficient and useful. It is a transition between 3 different systems. IT needs to lead the way WITH the FULL backing of FORWARD THINKING leadership.

Hi Johnathan, thanks for the compliment! This video is now over a year old. I recommend watching my video I made a few months back about moving your file server to Teams. I'd skip moving them to SharePoint document libraries. We recommend moving file servers to Teams files at this point in our consulting practice.

It sounds to me like you have the sync set to "Free Up Space" instead of "Always Keep on this Device". My preference is to keep it on "Free Up Space" and let OneDrive determine what should be sync'd locally.

@@Xerillion it turned out the person who uploaded all stuff to sharepoint didnt check IN them, by default all documents are checked out.. so others can sync folder structure but not able to see any files under those folders...

Thanks! I'd have one site, and then separate document libraries for each department.

@@Xerillion thanks so much for the quick reply! Keep up the great work!

Yeah, we scan the file server folders for do many different things before migrating. Besides the characters SharePoint doesn't like, there are path length considerations, and a 300,000 file sync limit on overdrive to deal with.

Hi Abolaji, I wouldn't even know where that file is at this point, and as they take me a lot of time to put together, I don't send them out, though hopefully people get value they need from watching the videos themselves. Thanks for the compliment!

Thanks Emma! All I did there was configure OneDrive to sync those folders - and those folders were built out in Teams.

You are right - there is a 400 character path limit. A SharePoint purist (I'm NOT one - I"m more of a Teams guy these days..but of course that uses SharePoint document libraries too) would say sorting your files by subfolders going 4-5 levels deep isn't modern document management - tagging these documents with a label in their metadata is the what you should be doing. Instead of a user clicking down 4 levels of subfolders to organize their data, it would be simpler if they had one box with a drop down that represented the options for folder 1, then a second drop down for folder 2, and a 3rd for folder 3, and so on. Organizing and searching becomes much faster and easier. Still, I get changing a workflow for 600 users would be rough and probably not realistic. But then again, it would be compared to the cost of maintaining and refreshing a file server, BDR, VPN, you and your IT dept.'s all-in wage cost to maintain the existing system. SharePoint Online wins hand-down.

@@Xerillion excellent thanks for the comment. Unfortunately I am dealing with some personal who are stuck deep in the nested sub folder idea and some of their folders go 8 to 10 folders deep. It hasn't been easy.

Thanks Diego! What you see the at that video reference point is the SharePoint web app, and that shows all the document libraries natively, so there is nothing to do there specifically.

Well, this is an old video and has since been replace with a newer video on moving your files to Microsoft Teams. We don't use the method described here anymore. We use OneDrive Files on Demand which looks close enough to a drive mapping.

I don't think it is a requirement unless you are someone who does "backups of backups".

Thanks Quintin! You make a good point, I need to add information on the storage you get in a SharePoint subscription to the videos. You get 1TB of shared storage + 10GB/user pooled to the shared storage. So, if you had 100 users, you'd get 2TB of shared storage available to you, and then if you needed more, you'd pay 20 cents/GB/month. So if you added an additional 1TB over your allotted 2TB of your 100 user company, you'd pay an additional $200/month above your Office 365 subscriptions. Then each user gets 1TB of OneDrive personal business storage, which an admin can crank up to 5TB without having to make a request to Microsoft. Thanks for the comment!

@@Xerillion thanks for your quick response, it makes a lot more sense to me now.

@@Xerillion The part where an admin "can crank up to 5TB ..." lost me. Do you mind clarifying your point. Your video convinced me to migrate, but would love some clarification on this point. Thank you.

@@jonotworth I mean the user starts with 1 TB storage in OneDrive, but the admin can increase that to 5TB.

Answered my own question after some searching...Here is the Link: support.office.com/en-us/article/change-the-permissions-on-a-subfolder-5427bd7c-f20a-4f75-8cf2-5359dd45a1a6

I cover my thoughts in the video relating to the questions you are asking. I'm not a fan of special sub-folder permissions in any situation - even when I used to put in file servers. They are messy and create security issues. I think, based on the questions you are asking, watching the entire video so you get the whole context would be helpful for you. I know it is a lot to watch, but IT is not simple - it is complex, especially modern enterprise cloud IT.

I don't know. If I were wondering that question, I'd have to check with the app developer in question to see if they explicitly have that support. If they don't explicitly state that, then I'd have to test it, which wouldn't be hard to do.

Sorry for the slow response, somehow I missed this one. I think I understand what you are saying, but I'm not 100% sure I do. I don't sync an entire site, I only sync the specific document library that I want to put into Windows File Explorer.

Just Google search something like "sharepoint online limits" and you'll get the information you are looking for. There is some huge limit, and you will pay 20 cents per GB/month after you pass the allotment you get with your subscription.

Thanks! I agree about your comments on really big files. I call it 'the big file problem' and I go into it later on in the video. If you have an internet connection of a lower grade than a 50-100Mb fiber, you have the potential of damage to the large files due to latency-as you mention. Also, collaborating in large files becomes problematic. In those cases you will need a local file cache solution, doesn't need to be a full blown server. This is where we use Azure Active sync. So so other shared folders go to SharePoint document libraries, and file folders with big files go to Azure file sync with a local file cache.

@@Xerillion Many thanks for your reply! Will check into AD then. Best Regards.

Thanks! It just pops up when you setup the sync. I have never had to do anything else to get it to show up there.

@@Xerillion Thanks - that worked. I hadn't done that last step in the setup process.

Well, you can post your question here and I'll try, though if it takes more than a few sentences, you'll probably need a Microsoft cloud solutions provider.

That's a HUGE item. Here is a key point: I would NOT do a wholesales copy of your existing file shares into your pristine new setup of SharePoint document libraries or Teams Files. This is the time for your company to stop the madness with messy file shares and put some thought into what is actually going to be carried over into Microsoft 365 from a local file server. Of course, this is WAY easier said than done. Copying over files from one play to another - not a big deal. Doing it smartly...well, that is. Sorry I don't have a quicker answer for you on this, but what I described above is the result of hundreds of such conversations over the past few years with companies. DO NOT just simply copy over what you have.

Hey Matt! Regarding backups - in Office 365/SharePoint Online/OneDrive - you don't manage a backup system, you manage retention policies - which are much more powerful than backups. Retention policies make backups look archaic. I go over this very point in this video here on my channel "How to "Backup" Emails and Files in Office 365 for FREE" : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zr1XiSC_aXA.html

@@Xerillion . I was just thinking if a disgruntled user decided to move the folder structure around heavily, a better get out would be to restore the layout if you are dealing with a layout of 100's of folders nested. I wasn't aware you could do this without something like Veeam, or CloudAlly

@@Sailing_Reality I understand. I haven't looked back at permissions in a few months, and haven't had to look at this issue specifically, though I believe there is a permission around if someone can modify folder structures. -Wayne

@@Sailing_Reality You raised a good question so I had to look. I think this is what you are looking for? social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/7ff24b56-a50d-4343-bf3a-5732ab035331/preventing-users-from-deleting-any-list-item-or-folder-from-all-share-point-listslibraries?forum=sharepointdevelopment

@@Sailing_Reality One of my engineers literally posted this this morning in Teams - I think you'll like this: techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-SharePoint-Blog/Files-restore-for-SharePoint-and-Microsoft-Teams/ba-p/480760?ranMID=24542&ranEAID=je6NUbpObpQ&ranSiteID=je6NUbpObpQ-QNgRXX2CAV3cRcJHGLDtAw&epi=je6NUbpObpQ-QNgRXX2CAV3cRcJHGLDtAw&irgwc=1&OCID=AID681541_aff_7593_1243925&tduid=(ir__d3glw92ecgkfrk39xc1u9inwzv2xmpr23lwu6aj100)(7593)(1243925)(je6NUbpObpQ-QNgRXX2CAV3cRcJHGLDtAw)()&irclickid=_d3glw92ecgkfrk39xc1u9inwzv2xmpr23lwu6aj100

No, it isn't.

20TB! Wow! Well, this was a OneDrive update earlier in the year. I'm wondering if you have the latest version of the OneDrive client?

Hi, just in case anyone else combs through these for helpful info (Thank you for the great video), if you have the latest OneDrive app, it's probably just a matter of enabling "Files on Demand" on the first tab of the OneDrive client. I had the same question & after checking this, I now see the those icons.

Thanks! You have to right click on the entire folder and choose 'free up space'.

Thanks! Glad you got something out of it, and thanks for asking, and yes you can.

In our practice, we focus on keeping an individual user's sync under 300,000 items. Over 300,000 items and the sync will bog down as you are describing. So, the structure either needs to be adjusted to break the folders up so people aren't syncing everything, or they access though Teams or the SharePoint web app.

@@Xerillion that's what I was thinking too I just have to bring it to our management. Thanks

Hi Zobook, we don't use Windows 7 computers as they are end of life at this point. When we take on a new client, if there are any Windows 7 computers (rare), those get upgraded as part of the migration project. I do understand some companies are stuck with Windows 7 due to legacy apps they have not upgraded. In our practice though, we don't integrate these systems with Windows 7 computers.

Yes, this is a permissions thing. You see all of that in my video because I am an admin in my tenant.

Hi Olivia - yes, I do think it is a good alternative, and with SharePoint (or Teams Files), you can add guests who do not have 365 accounts as well.

When we migrate clients, we review their folders and files to look for the problems you mention. Normally, client's file servers are huge mess - and they know it and they want to clean it up. So, 50% of the time, we do not simply copy everything over. The client only copies over files they need, and then the old file server becomes an archive. This is my preferred method as well; then you don't have the issues you are referring to.

I mentioned it in a few other responses - but we don't do a "wholesale" copy of file server files to SharePoint or Teams. We us this project to "clean house".

Hi! I haven't tried it myself, though I suspect (and you have already tried) that you'll need to connect the links through a URL with corresponding permissions managed through Azure Active Directory. Again, you might have already tried it, but this is the route I'd be pursuing if we were faced with this, though we have not yet had to deal with this exact scenario.

Thanks for your helpful reply, I'll give it a try.

You use OneDrive Sync.

Completely accessible on mobile devices if you want them to be.

This is one of my earliest videos I ever made. I made an updated one last year that goes in depth: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZrIGdLz1-p0.html

First, confirming you want to move all 40TB to SharePoint online-as that would add $8,000/month to your companies MS 365 subscription?

We are a non-profit and are fortunate to enjoy substantially lower O365 costs as a result. I'm curious to know whether you would utilize Fasttrack to migrate that quantity of data in practice, or use another approach ?

@@HOKING-ef8dj I'm probably missing something but when I go to the non profit section for Office 365, it shows adding additional SharePoint online store to be 0.20/GB. I'm not seeing that part having a discount, but wondering if you could post a link to the discounted rate that you are seeing?

What would you use to migrate that amount of data? Would it be FastTrack or something else?@@Xerillion

@@mrnobody45321 we have never used FastTrack for our clients or felt the need to. If the client really needed 40TB moved, and was willing to spend $8,000/month , we'd use the SharePoint Online Migration Tool. But even before that, we'd need to do some serious prep and planning work. This migration is actually a good time to clean house. I'd avoid, if possible bringing over decades of files, likely a lot of which might not be relevant any longer and best to make the existing file server an archive.

Hmm...I don't understand your question "How do you deal with the path." I think I need more context to be able to see if I can answer the question.

Thanks D! A few things I'd say: the classic case of the computer gets stolen or loss is what disk encryption is used for (i.e, Windows Bitlocker). At Xerillion, Intune checks Windows/IOS/Android OS devices connecting to our cloud services for encryption and if that check fails the user is not allowed to connect with that device through a conditional access policy - even if they are a valid user. Also, with OneDrive Files on Demand, you only need to sync the files are using. You don't need to sync the entire folder.

just remember to select free up space for your one drive before you shut down the laptop, and change your password if the laptop is missing.

What I tell IT Pro's is to not do a simple transfer. When you do this project it's time to clean house on your file shares and thoughtfully build your new "shares" in Teams with new ACL's, ect.

My question to you: how messy is your 45TB file server? My guess? Extremely messy. At 45TB I'm guessing it's structure was put in place 20+ years ago, and IT manager after IT manager has had their fingers in it, making changes (many on the fly). There are lots of subfolders with disinherited permissions from the parent folder. There are probably subfolders with permissions for specific people instead of groups. 4.5 million of the 5 million files are not even actively used anymore and haven't been for along time. There are no retention policies setup to clear out useless files. This is so common, especially with big file servers like yours. My answer to anyone who I talk to in this situation is that I would **not** recreate their messy/old file server in their migration to Microsoft 365. I would use a modern architecture - and retrain and rethink how you are managing your files.

@@Xerillion Well explained

Yes

Yes, there is. You need an Intune configuration policy.