Can I use OneDrive for Business as a file server?

Siberian

Siberian

Member
I'm attempting to understand the correct way to use of OneDrive for Business. What I need it to be is simply a file server - only in the cloud instead of in the next room. My main question: What is the point of this synchronization that happens back and forth? In the "old days" the files were on the server, and you just opened them, did your thing, and saved it. Done. There was no syncing back and forth. I understand that it makes offline work possible, but that's not really an issue in my case. So, is it possible for me to use OneDrive in this apparently old fashioned manner?
 
As far as I know, no you can not. There is no way to map a network drive to OneDrive as you normally would if it was an in-house file server. You can either use the local client which syncs a local folder, or you can use a browser and work within the browser on web-based Office products or manually upload/download files.

The point of the local folder syncing, is so if there is a network interruption or you want to work without an internet connection, all of your files are available locally and will sync the next time you are online.
 
Geoff said:
There is no way to map a network drive to OneDrive as you normally would if it was an in-house file server.
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This can be done (I'm doing it now), but it's a bit cumbersome. You can simply map parts of the OneDrive browser address as a network drive. In the browser OneDrive has a "File explorer-view" that let's you view your files in the file explorer. The issue is that you must log in and "engage" this file explorer view before the mapped drive will "take". In other words, you must take the long way around before the shortcut opens - which sort of defeats the whole purpose. In addition this is even more clunky to do on a tablet.
 
Siberian said:
This can be done (I'm doing it now), but it's a bit cumbersome. You can simply map parts of the OneDrive browser address as a network drive. In the browser OneDrive has a "File explorer-view" that let's you view your files in the file explorer. The issue is that you must log in and "engage" this file explorer view before the mapped drive will "take". In other words, you must take the long way around before the shortcut opens - which sort of defeats the whole purpose. In addition this is even more clunky to do on a tablet.
Click to expand...
Which doesn't sound like that's a usable workaround, so trying to map a network drive to OneDrive isn't an option for you.
 
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