Note: As of February 2014 SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro are renamed to OneDrive and OneDrive for Business.
First of all, since most people get confused about the topic – here’s an explanation of the difference between OneDrive, and the other service, OneDrive for Business.
If you work with a lot of SharePoint documents, you can probably appreciate the appeal of syncing your SharePoint library content to your computer. Doing so brings the following benefits:
- 24/7 access to your documents. Read and edit while you’re offline. Everything syncs with SharePoint whenever you go back online.
- Browser-free interaction with your documents. Opening your documents in a Web browser is fine, but working directly in your file system is usually more convenient.
To sync a library: Go to the library > click Sync at the top of the page > click Sync Now in the OneDrive for Business wizard.
Keep in mind the following restrictions and limitations related to syncing SharePoint libraries.
How many items can I sync?
- You can sync up to 20,000 items in your OneDrive for Business library, including folders and files.
- You can sync up to 5,000 items in other SharePoint libraries, including folders and files. These are the libraries you find in various SharePoint sites, such as team sites and community sites.
What’s the size limit for downloading files?
In any SharePoint library, you can download files of up to 2 GB.
What’s the character limit for files and folders?
These limits apply to files and folders that you add to a synced library folder for uploading to SharePoint. In normal practice, you’re unlikely to hit these limits. But I’ll mention them here, just in case:
- File names can have up to 128 characters
- Folder names can have up to 256 characters
- Folder name/file name combinations can have up to 260 characters
If you have a file, folder, or combination that exceeds the limit, the item will remain in the synced library folder, and an error icon will appear on the item to tell you that there’s a sync problem.
Invalid characters & filenames
Folder Names and File Names
- Do not use: ” # % & * : < > ? / { | } ~
- Do not use the period character consecutively in the middle of a file name. For example, “file..name.docx” is invalid.
- You cannot start a file name with the period character
- File names cannot be longer than 128 characters
- You cannot use the period character at the end of a file name
- Many other symbols are not recommended such as $^()-_=+[]`! (other international currency symbols and international symbols should be avoided in site names, but some are more acceptable in file names. Ascii is preferred when possible.
In addition, file names and folder names may not end with: (Many of these are international symbols)
.files, _files , -Dateien , _fichiers , _bestanden , _file ,_archivos ,-filer,_tiedostot ,_pliki ,_soubory ,_elemei , _arquivos ,_dosyalar ,_datoteke ,_fitxers,_failid,_fails ,_bylos ,_fajlovi,_fitxategiak
Invalid file types
You cannot upload OneNote files, or files with a *.tmp or *.ds_store extension. Additionally, you cannot upload desktop.ini, thumbs.db, or ehthumbs.db.
Additionally, you cannot upload types of files that are blocked on the SharePoint site. If your organization is running SharePoint Server, the list of blocked files may vary depending on what your administrator sets up. If your organization is running SharePoint Online, the default list of blocked files is fixed and can’t be changed. To see a list of the default blocked files, see Types of files that cannot be added to a list or library.
** You can use the following PowerShell Script to clean up invalid characters, file lengths & upload otherwise problematic files to OneDrive: http://hansbrender.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/skydrive-pro-powershell-script-checks-and-moves-folders-and-files/ **
OneDrive for Business library limits and workarounds
The OneDrive for Business library in all SharePoint Online plans in Office 365 comes with 1 TB of storage per user. There is not presently an option for purchasing additional storage for the OneDrive for Business library.
The good news, however, is that the storage space in your OneDrive for Business library is in addition to the storage space you get for SharePoint Online sites plus the storage space allocated for each user subscribing to these sites. The baseline limit in most plans is 10 GB for SharePoint Online sites plus 500 MB per subscribed user. Importantly, additional storage can be purchased for SharePoint Online sites. For details on the storage limits for different SharePoint Online plans, see SharePoint Online: Software boundaries and limits. If you’re concerned about exceeding the storage capacity of your OneDrive for Business library, consider the following options:
- Instead of uploading documents to your OneDrive for Business library, upload them to libraries on team sites or community sites you’re following, and in which you have Contribute permission for the libraries.
- Periodically review the documents you’re storing in your SkyDrive Pro library, and delete documents you no longer need. Note that when you delete documents, you also need to empty the recycle bin if you also want to reclaim the storage space.
Other options for storing documents in SharePoint
Uploading to your OneDrive for Business library is typically the way to store documents, especially since the OneDrive link is always available at the top of the page. What’s more, it’s easy to share any document with selected people, with no setup requirements beyond opening the Share dialog box, and inviting people to share.
But it also makes sense to consider the lifecycle of a document. For instance, if you’re planning to share a document, and you expect people to discuss it and work on it together, you could store the document on a team site or community site, places where selected people gather with a specific sense of purpose.
Of course, sometimes you might initially store a document in your OneDrive for Business library, but then determine that it belongs in a team site or community site. It’s fine to move documents but it’s important to remember that you or other people with whom you’ve shared the document might have posted links to it, perhaps in a newsfeed. In this case, once the document is moved, these links will no longer be valid and will need to be re-created in order to point to the new location of the document. With this detail in mind, you might want to reconsider uploading certain documents to team sites or community sites in the first place.
References
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn232145(v=office.15).aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/what-is-onedrive-for-business-HA102822076.aspx
http://www.collabshow.com/2013/10/31/sharepoint-2013-and-office-365-sharepoint-online-file-size-limits-on-folders-and-list-restrictions/
http://en.share-gate.com/blog/sharepoint-2013-skydrive-pro-vs-dropbox
https://blogs.technet.com/b/akieft/archive/2013/09/06/migrating-file-shares-to-skydrive-pro.aspx
3rd Party Options
For those who need more files to sync: There are some 3rd party tools for uni-and bi-directional server-based file system replication with SharePoint libraries on the market:
