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OneDrive and SharePoint: Which cloud storage is the best for your business? OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online are both well known for providing cloud storage with integration to Office 365. Due to this, many users are in a dilemma about which one is best for them.
One of the most common differences between the two platforms is that SharePoint is meant for team collaboration, while OneDrive for Business accounts are generally for individual users. To decide which one is suitable for your objectives, a clear comparison is what you need to get familiar with both platforms in depth.
What is SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint is a complete collaboration and content management application for enterprises, providing access to features like versioning, workflow, permissions, co-authoring, intranet, publishing, and more.
SharePoint can be used to make internal sites, subsites, pages, intranets, announcements, create and store various company documents, and eve more. Employees can view and access the company website from anywhere and download essential documents.
What is OneDrive for Business
OneDrive for Business from Microsoft provides centrally accessible storage for the entire organization. Users can store and share files, synchronize accounts, and get offline access, as per organizational needs. However, it doesn’t have marketing resources like social media and websites, which are considered very essential nowadays. So, it is just a content storing and sharing application.
SharePoint vs OneDrive for Business – How are they similar?
SharePoint as well as OneDrive, both support features like co-authoring on documents, sharing, versioning, access control, etc. But the question is: When they have so much in common, why are they not represented as a single product? Why did Microsoft release them as two different platforms?
Now the question is: When they have so many similar functionalities to serve, why are they not represented as a single product? Why did Microsoft release them as two different platforms? Let’s understand this.
SharePoint is a complete collaboration product, whereas OneDrive is merely a data storage cabin for you and your team. SharePoint provides dashboards, tasks, notifications, calendars, etc., along with the facilities for intranet and company portals to distribute information.
But while looking for a collaboration platform, administrators are always confused about which one to go for – SharePoint or OneDrive for Business, or both together? So, we will go through their differences in detail.
- Specific users vs. many users: OneDrive for Business is a cloud files storage that supports data synchronization, sharing, and access. But SharePoint is a product that ensures data availability to the desired users from anywhere with the controlled and governed access. In SharePoint, data is stored with the objective of long-term retention.
- Storing vs. collaboration: OneDrive for Business is basically a storing and sharing application, whereas SharePoint is designed and developed more like a collaboration application. OneDrive for Business allows users to store documents privately and share them with team members or others as per the requirements. However, SharePoint facilitates real-time collaboration and enhances teamwork.
- Sharing vs. publishing: It is a major difference between both platforms. While using OneDrive for Business, you share files with other users, mostly to accomplish a common task. It can be shared as email links also. However, SharePoint gives you the power to publish news, announcements, news, and site pages on intranet sites, available to everyone for download.
SharePoint vs OneDrive for Business – A comparison table
To clearly understand the difference between these two Microsoft cloud storages, consider OneDrive as your personal notebook and SharePoint as the bulletin board of the school. On the one hand, the notebook contains your own data that you can delete by removing the page and even share it with others. To do the same on the bulletin board, you will need authorization and access to edit, contribute, or remove it.
This is the way SharePoint and OneDrive work. Let’s understand the differences now:
| Factors | SharePoint | OneDrive for Business |
|---|---|---|
| Main function | Collaboration | File storing and sharing | Used by |
Consist of shared organizational content | Users with individual files (owned or shared by others) |
Data sharing |
Makes data available to all users across the organization | Individual file storage that can be shared with specific users or group |
Other Microsoft applications |
Integrates with multiple applications | Integrates with Microsoft Teams |
Publishing |
Can publish on intranet sites (pages, news, sites, etc.) | Can share data only (personal and team files) |
Cloud version availability |
Available on cloud | Available on cloud |
Which one to choose – SharePoint vs OneDrive for Business?
As you can see, SharePoint and OneDrive for Business have complementary features. Several organizations working with Microsoft 365 use both components according to the requirements rather than choosing between them. If they just have content sharing needs only, OneDrive for Business is enough for them. But if they are looking for advanced collaborative features, SharePoint is definitely what they need.
Do you need to backup SharePoint or OneDrive for Business data?
Just because these are cloud storage services provided by Microsoft, there is a perception that SharePoint and OneDrive data is secure. This is also right to a large extent due to the extremely brilliant security features of these applications. But there are some rare situations in which the security of SharePoint or OneDrive for Business data can also be compromised.
The solution to avoid losing data in such unexpected circumstances is a thorough data backup. There are several methods available to save the data to your local storage and you can backup SharePoint with PowerShell, although it is more suited for technical experts.
How to Backup SharePoint and OneDrive for Business?
Irrespective of what you choose from SharePoint vs OneDrive, backing up both apps is crucial. The manual methods to backup SharePoint and OneDrive are not beginner-friendly, carry the risk of data loss, and involve repetitive actions. Therefore, for a simple & straightforward approach, you must use a professional backup solution like Kernel Migration for SharePoint.
This SharePoint migration tool is a robust application that not just helps you backup SharePoint and OneDrive data but also helps you with complex tasks like data migration. It is a one-stop solution that helps you create recoverable copies of data from your cloud storage to allow easy restoration after disasters like malware or ransomware attacks. For user convenience and retained access to the data, the application also allows you to retain data permissions in the backup.
Conclusion
SharePoint and OneDrive for Business are two different yet complementary platforms from Microsoft. Though many organizations use them both simultaneously, one can choose any one of them as per their requirements. No matter which platform you are using, it is important that you back up the data regularly to avoid any unexpected disasters. You can use Kernel Migration for SharePoint, an effective tool for SharePoint and OneDrive Migration. Additionally, it also helps you backup OneDrive for Business and SharePoint data.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ans: No, even though both OneDrive and SharePoint are a part of the Office 365 collaboration suite, they’re different platforms. OneDrive is basically a cloud-based file storage platform, while SharePoint supports effective content management and collaboration.
Ans: Since OneDrive is a personal storage, it is used for storing and sharing files, documents, and folders. On the other hand, SharePoint is a document management platform used to simplify collaboration among teams. If you’re the owner of the file and responsible for all the changes made to it, use OneDrive. However, if a file is owned by a team or a group, upload it to SharePoint.
Ans: Yes. Microsoft allows you to easily sync SharePoint library to your local File Server or OneDrive. This means any changes made into one location will reflect to other automatically.
