OneDrive Backup and DR
Five Common Misconceptions About OneDrive Data Security
Introduction
In a recent article, we’ve discussed how to reliably back up OneDrive and ensure data security. However, many people and companies rely on various other solutions, assuming they provide adequate protection. Before selecting the right solution, it’s important to understand why these approaches often fail.
In this article, we’ll explore several common methods used for OneDrive data security that seem effective but ultimately don’t provide the protection they promise. By reviewing these methods, you—whether you’re a Managed Service Provider or IT engineer—will be better equipped to convince your clients to choose a reliable, comprehensive backup solution for OneDrive.
1. Assuming Cloud Storage Equals Backup
There’s a common misconception that storing files in the cloud inherently provides backup protection. Users may believe that because their data is in OneDrive, it’s immune to loss. However, cloud storage services primarily focus on accessibility and collaboration, not comprehensive backup.
Cloud services are as prone to data loss, as desktop workstations, they just have different sources of threats. Collaborators can change or delete files. An employee can remove their files—accidentally or intentionally. The whole company can lose access to the cloud service because the administrator account was compromised. In all these cases, being in the cloud doesn’t make the data safe.
2. Syncing OneDrive to Local Folders Without Proper Backup
Some users sync OneDrive files to local folders or an extra computer, assuming this provides a backup. However, synchronization mirrors changes across both locations, meaning deletions or corruptions in OneDrive are replicated locally.
Moreover, there’s no guarantee that each folder in OneDrive gets synced to the users’ desktops. On a large company scale, it’s hard to ensure that all workstations have the same sync settings.
3. Relying Solely on OneDrive’s Built-in Features
Many users assume that OneDrive’s native features, such as file versioning and the recycle bin, are sufficient for backup purposes. However, these features have limitations in retention periods and may not protect against all data loss scenarios.
4. Copying Files to External Drives
Some users manually copy files from OneDrive to external hard drives, believing this method ensures data safety. This approach is labor-intensive and prone to human error, leading to inconsistent backups and potential data loss. It’s hardly possible to observe and maintain this type of backup on a company scale, even if it’s automated with some scripts running on user workstations. Finally, recovering from such copies will take lots of effort in the case of data loss.
Let’s admit that having such copies is much better than having nothing at all, but at the same time, it’s so much worse than a proper automated backup.
5. Using Desktop Backup Software For OneDrive Backups
Desktop backup software is very effective in ensuring the safety of files stored on a workstation. However, with OneDrive, files and folders that seem to be stored on the computer can, in fact, only exist in the cloud. These are called “On-demand files” and effectively they’re just links to files in the cloud. Besides that, as mentioned above, not every OneDrive folder will be synced on the desktop. Finally, users can use OneDrive in the browser without local file copies. Of course, only a discreet OneDrive backup solution can guarantee that each file and folder is backed up.
Conclusion
Now that we have seen multiple unreliable solutions, let’s remind ourselves how a reliable OneDrive backup solution works:
- Making regular backups automatically.
- Securing data with immutable backups and having flexible retention policies.
- Offering granular capabilities, which exceed the built-in OneDrive file versioning.
- Working on independent infrastructure and connecting to OneDrive directly.
- Having advanced security and access control features.
- Being scalable and observable, as a proper IT management tool should be.
MSP360 Managed Backup for Microsoft 365 meets all of these requirements. Once you sign up, you get a 15-day free trial with full functionality and immediate access to the control panel. Use your own cloud storage or take advantage of 1 TB of free trial storage from MSP360 for 30 days.
