OneDrive using double the hard drive space - looking for alternative cloud services

[Aggedor]

Can anyone recommend a cloud service?

I use OneDrive (1TB come with my Office 365 sub), but I've discovered it is keeping duplicates of everything in OneDrive.noindex - this appears to be a known problem (Reddit has dozens of threads about it), and on my M1 MBA it is taking up about 250GB of space.

If I ditch OneDrive altogether except for my mandatory Office stuff which I have to use for work (OneDrive can't duplicate Word docs to fill 250GB, I figure), what's the best alternative cloud service?

I have a 200GB iCloud sub, which I could increase, but I'm not sure this works in quite the same way. I'm looking for cloud-based storage of large directories, allowing local hard drive space to be freed. iCloud Drive uses the "optimise storage" option which is not customisable.

I used to use DropBox years ago, but I recall everybody went off them for some reason.

I'm happy to pay for a good service, as I need 1TB minimum.

 

[Ctrlos]

There are a lot of cloud companies out there these days. The reason I think most people gravitate towards Microsoft/Apple/Google is simply because they want to know their data is safe with a company that won't become insolvent in a few years.

With that in mind my only suggestion would be Google Drive.

 

[Aggedor]

There are a lot of cloud companies out there these days. The reason I think most people gravitate towards Microsoft/Apple/Google is simply because they want to know their data is safe with a company that won't become insolvent in a few years.

With that in mind my only suggestion would be Google Drive.

I do have a paid Google Drive account (as I use Google Photos and I had to bump the storage up). However, I just downloaded the Google Drive app, installed it, and then did a test sync with a couple of local folders. It synched them, and then next time I opened Google Drive, they were gone. The menu bar thing said that the folder couldn't be opened. The tests folders are not on my local Google Drive, nor are they in the online Google Drive. The menu bar history thing shows all the files synched.

Not a great start?

 

[Cyby-CyberDog]

You can also consider using CloudMounter https://cloudmounter.net/

 

[Bigwaff]

You could ditch the OneDrive client software and simply use the web interface. It's convenient to edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint documents via the web interface. The web interface includes on option to open the document for edition using local installed versions.

 

[Ctrlos]

I do have a paid Google Drive account (as I use Google Photos and I had to bump the storage up). However, I just downloaded the Google Drive app, installed it, and then did a test sync with a couple of local folders. It synched them, and then next time I opened Google Drive, they were gone. The menu bar thing said that the folder couldn't be opened. The tests folders are not on my local Google Drive, nor are they in the online Google Drive. The menu bar history thing shows all the files synched.

Not a great start?

Have you tried using Onesync? https://code.google.com/archive/p/onesync/ It lets you sync specific folders back to OneDrive from your PC without using the whole client. There is an Android version as well that is very good if that's something you ever need. That might fix your original issues.

Otherwise it might be a bit pricey but Dropbox is still going and it works well.

 

[gilby101]

Like OneDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive use Apple's File Provider framework. But unlike OneDrive don't consume extra space with their cache. So recommend GoogleDrive or Dropbox over OneDrive for apps using the file provider framework.

My favourite alternative is Mountain Duck https://mountainduck.io/ which caches content on demand wherever you choose (I have it on an external disk). It "mounts" the OneDrive content in the file system so it appears in Finder.

 

[EssentialGadget]

I have 25 years experience as a systems engineer developing PC systems. One of my specialties is mass storage, memory, and network integrity. Tools we have developed have found numerous OS, drive, and file system flaws.

Several years ago I evaluated all the major cloud storage systems. The only rock solid one is Dropbox. I have run my business on Dropbox since 2011 and it has been flawless. I currently have Advanced Team subscription for 3 seats.

Occasionally, I spot check the field and problems still exist.

Strongly recommend Dropbox.

 

[Cyby-CyberDog]

You could ditch the OneDrive client software and simply use the web interface. It's convenient to edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint documents via the web interface. The web interface includes on option to open the document for edition using local installed versions.

When using CloudMounter you are using a mounted network drive in the Finder giving you the opportunity to use mounted drives from multiple provider, not only OneDrive but also DropDox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, (S)FTP.

 

[Aggedor]

Thanks everyone for your help! I've got a large external SSD coming this weekend, so I'll back up my entire machine, purge all trace of OneDrive, then test out Dropbox.

I found a temporary workaround to avoid OneDrive eating my entire hard drive with the Apple File System cache - if I hide OneDrive folders from the local machine, even if they are not downloaded, the duplicate cache eventually purges.

So I guess my next step will be to individually download the OneDrive content folders from the web interface directly onto my external SSD, then once I have DropBox set up, add them one-by-one into that and allow them to upload before removing the local content. This M1 MBA doesn't have enough internal storage to handle everything I need in OneDrive, so it'll have to be done bit by bit.

But if DropBox doesn't eat hard drive space with a cache as @gilby101 says, that should work?

Having said that: Mountain Duck looks interesting... looks the same as CloudMounter? I still need to use OneDrive for work but if I continued to hide the large directories from the local machine, but use Mountain Duck as well, I could still see them in a Mountain Duck-mounted volume, and access them on demand? But by not using the OneDrive client, I'd avoid the terrible cache issue?

 

[gilby101]

But if DropBox doesn't eat hard drive space with a cache as @gilby101 says, that should work?

That's my experience. Dropbox is definitely lighter in its use of your boot disk. And I feel more in control of what is stored locally and what is cloud only (evicted).

Mountain Duck looks interesting... looks the same as CloudMounter?

Functionally very similar. When I compared them some years ago, CloudMounter seems a bit less reliable to use. But I have not tried CM recently. I also preferred the vibe of the Mountain Duck (and CyberDuck) web site. Most importantly neither need to use space on your system drive.

History is that Dropbox, GoogleDrive and OneDrive used kernel extensions to present their content to the file system (viewed in Finder). They have all been corralled into using Apple's File Provider framework - which is both good and bad.

Mountain Duck and Cloud Mounter are front ends to multiple cloud storages and have avoided kernel extensions (now largely taboo with Apple). They present files as a user mode file system (supposedly more secure) which integrates with Finder. They are probably a bit slower when interacting with apps, but in practice that is not a problem unless you are using them to move lots of files around.

 

[AlmightyKang]

There are a lot of cloud companies out there these days. The reason I think most people gravitate towards Microsoft/Apple/Google is simply because they want to know their data is safe with a company that won't become insolvent in a few years.

With that in mind my only suggestion would be Google Drive.

No no no no no no no. They pushed out an update to their Google Drive client a couple of weeks back that irrecoverably trashed people's files. Then they handled it really really badly and tried to silence users. They cannot be trusted.

Google calls Drive data loss “fixed,” locks forum threads saying otherwise

The fix will sift through app data for cached files, but users say it doesn’t work.

arstechnica.com

I only use the cloud for syncing stuff between my iOS devices + Mac. Everything else is offline.

Also, never use an online "drive" provider as your principal backup. Arrange that separately. Either offline (Time Machine / rsync disk) or online (S3/BackBlaze etc).

 

[Aggedor]

That's my experience. Dropbox is definitely lighter in its use of your boot disk. And I feel more in control of what is stored locally and what is cloud only (evicted).

Functionally very similar. When I compared them some years ago, CloudMounter seems a bit less reliable to use. But I have not tried CM recently. I also preferred the vibe of the Mountain Duck (and CyberDuck) web site. Most importantly neither need to use space on your system drive.

History is that Dropbox, GoogleDrive and OneDrive used kernel extensions to present their content to the file system (viewed in Finder). They have all been corralled into using Apple's File Provider framework - which is both good and bad.

Mountain Duck and Cloud Mounter are front ends to multiple cloud storages and have avoided kernel extensions (now largely taboo with Apple). They present files as a user mode file system (supposedly more secure) which integrates with Finder. They are probably a bit slower when interacting with apps, but in practice that is not a problem unless you are using them to move lots of files around.

Looking at Mountain Duck, it gives me my OneDrive as mounted "drive" in my Finder sidebar... but it also shows as a connected server under Locations, as OneDrive (graph.microsoft.com), which is listed as a Sharepoint. I guess this is fine, but it's a bit annoying to have the extra clutter.

Dropbox also offers iterative back-ups, doesn't it? So if something goes wrong I can roll back via DropBox itself?

 

[Aggedor]

No no no no no no no. They pushed out an update to their Google Drive client a couple of weeks back that irrecoverably trashed people's files. Then they handled it really really badly and tried to silence users. They cannot be trusted.

Google calls Drive data loss “fixed,” locks forum threads saying otherwise

The fix will sift through app data for cached files, but users say it doesn’t work.

arstechnica.com

I only use the cloud for syncing stuff between my iOS devices + Mac. Everything else is offline.

Also, never use an online "drive" provider as your principal backup. Arrange that separately. Either offline (Time Machine / rsync disk) or online (S3/BackBlaze etc).

Yeah not so keen on Google products. And yes totally agree to never use a cloud provider as principal backup!

 

[gilby101]

Dropbox also offers iterative back-ups, doesn't it? So if something goes wrong I can roll back via DropBox itself?

Maybe. You should test it. AFAIK it is on a file by file basis - not what I call a roll back. Personally I would never consider a cloud service as a backup - always do your own local and off-site backup.