Pros & Cons
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- Excellent value
- Massive 1TB of storage per user
- Mobile apps with OCR tech
- Easy-to-use workflow tools
- Password protection is available on every stored file and folder
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- Lacks data governance
- Can't add extra storage
Microsoft OneDrive for Business Specs
| Authenticated External Sharing | |
| Cloud Storage Without Local File System Sync | |
| Digital Rights Management | |
| File Conflict Management | |
| Group Permissions | |
| Local File System Sync | |
| Mobile Apps | |
| Partial / Differential Sync | |
| Public Sharing | |
| Remote Wipe | |
| Team Folders |
OneDrive for Business is Microsoft's cloud storage and file-sharing service that competes with Dropbox Business, Google Drive, and other professional-focused syncing apps. What I found most compelling about OneDrive, aside from the streamlined user interface and robust feature set, is its cost. It's competitively priced (starting at $5 per user per month) and lets you store, view, and share more than 270 file types, including 2D and 3D modeling data from Autodesk CAD and AutoCAD. Even if your business doesn't handle complex, multilayered files, OneDrive is a terrific solution for securely sharing documents with coworkers and partners on other platforms. For those reasons, Microsoft OneDrive is an Editors' Choice winner for business cloud storage and file sharing (though I recommend Egnyte if you need data governance).
(Credit: Microsoft/PCMag)OneDrive (Business) vs. OneDrive (Consumer)
OneDrive for Business is available as a standalone service or part of Microsoft's work-focused productivity suite, Microsoft 365. There is considerable overlap between it and the consumer OneDrive, but the latter lacks key business features such as custom email domains, webinars, 1TB of cloud storage per employee, and user management.
Another key difference between the two is headcount. The consumer version supports six users, while the professional versions' highest tiers top out at 300. Unless your company has a small number of employees and doesn't need a business email domain, it will benefit from OneDrive for Business.
Plans and Prices: Affordable Business Backup
OneDrive offers different plans depending on whether you're interested in bundling this service with Microsoft Teams. Without Microsoft Teams, OneDrive has three tiers: Business, Business Basic, and Microsoft 365 Business Standard. The latter two tiers offer free one-month trials.
The Business plan ($5 per user per month) includes OneDrive and provides 1TB of cloud storage with a 250GB maximum file size. It's a plan for a single person. Next up the ladder is the Business Basic plan ($4.40 per user per month) that offers 1TB of cloud storage per employee, user management for up to 300 employees, custom business email addresses, and web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Finally, the Business Standard tier ($9.29 per user per month) includes everything in Business Basic, plus the Clipchamp video editor, the Loop collaboration app, webinars, and desktop versions of the previously mentioned software.
When bundled with Microsoft Teams, there are two tiers. The Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Microsoft 365 Business Standard plans include all the same features as the latter two tiers mentioned above and cost $6.00 and $12.50, respectively. If your business needs a way for employees to message one another online, this could be the right plan for you.
OneDrive's 1TB of cloud storage per person sets it apart from rivals. Much of the cloud competition offers "more" storage, but it's shared across multiple users and costs more. For example, Dropbox’s Business tier is $15 per user per month for 9TB of storage shared amongst the team. If you need more storage per employee, OneDrive might be your best choice.
If you want to go all in on Microsoft's Office apps, sign up for Microsoft 365. The suite (starting at $6 per user per month, paid annually) includes OneDrive, Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams. Microsoft Copilot is available as an add-on tool for Microsoft 365 subscribers. It offers useful features, such as reading and summarizing files. It can also compare five files and list their differences. These features come at a high price: $43 per user per month (or an additional $360 per user annually).
Versioning, the Upgraded File Viewer, and New Folder Colors
After selecting a package, you create an account and a Microsoft email before landing on the Microsoft 365 admin center page. Simply click the square in the top left corner to access your OneDrive account on the web.
(Credit: Microsoft/PCMag)A navigation bar offers the necessary file storing and sharing options. You can upload files to the account from your desktop or other Microsoft productivity tools via the Add New tab. Just south of that is the My Files tab, which acts as your drive. During testing, I easily dragged and dropped files from the desktop into the drive. Like Google Drive and other rival cloud storage and file-sharing services, OneDrive has tabs for shared files, favorite (bookmarked) files, and a recycle bin.
OneDrive lets you browse files by people, meetings, and media type, a unique filtering process compared with other cloud storage platforms. That three-group filtering could benefit every business, and I'd like to see more cloud storage services adopt it. OneDrive also has several useful management options for individual files and folders, with Version History and Automate being the most notable.
Version History shows who modified a file and when, and updates the file version. For example, a file begins as version 1.0 but gains a number (2.0, 3.0, etc.) with each change. The nomenclature and receipts are useful when discussing ever-evolving files with team members.
OneDrive has added a simple yet whimsical new way to organize your files. When creating a new folder, you can set its color to differentiate it from others. It's an unusual feature, but one I can see myself using a lot. Maybe I want to make all my image folders blue and all my PDF folders red. It's not groundbreaking, but a useful addition, nonetheless.
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The File Viewer has also seen some upgrades. Microsoft claims that previewing files is now 2X faster, and you can view more than 300 of them. When previewing an image, you have a host of editing options like color filters, cropping, annotation, and you can even request electronic signatures. It's incredibly useful. I saved a lot of time by cropping and annotating files in my drive instead of opening third-party applications and reuploading edited files.
You can automate file or folder backups by adding them to a Power Automate workflow. This lets managers stay on top of the happenings by approving each file change. In a nice touch, the tool lets you convert a Microsoft Word doc to a PDF without opening and exporting the file.
If you have the Microsoft Copilot license added to your account, you can send auto-generated summaries of your files via email to other team members. Microsoft 365 administrators can use it to export their sync reports for better troubleshooting.
That said, I'd like more OneDrive security and training. Egnyte, for example, features a Potential Malware tab, which aligns with the company's focus on safety and security. Egnyte also has Egnyte University, a robust knowledge resource designed to train newcomers on the software's many features
Using OneDrive for Business' Desktop and Mobile Apps
A quality cloud storage service must seamlessly integrate workflows across desktop and mobile devices. After tinkering with OneDrive's desktop and mobile apps, I was surprised by how seamlessly and quickly the software updated in real time when I added, deleted, or edited files.
OneDrive is available for macOS and Windows. Like Google Drive, OneDrive's apps aren't one-for-one recreations of the browser version. During setup, OneDrive asks you to create a folder to create a pathway between that folder and your cloud drive. You can also access OneDrive via your desktop’s toolbar, which has a clean feed of synced files.
Most of your file management or organization happens within your synced folders. The only downside? The desktop application doesn't enable much file management; it syncs data. Still, its file-syncing speed and efficiency make work easier.
(Credit: Microsoft/PCMag)OneDrive for Android and iOS is easier to navigate than Google Drive's mobile app. I added files by tapping the plus sign in the upper-right corner, then selecting what I wanted to upload to the cloud. Besides the upload option, there are several other features, such as scanning documents, taking photos or videos, or creating a file workflow. Once uploaded, I flagged files for offline use, which proved handy in instances when there was no internet connection.
The mobile apps optimize your phone's camera for snapping photos of documents, whiteboards, and business cards. It also lets you add filters, crop, rotate, or annotate an image before uploading it to your drive. In my tests, all snapped documents scanned well. In fact, the business card setting erased everything around the license, making it extremely readable.
Optical character recognition (OCR) is built into OneDrive's mobile apps. The tech is critical for scanning and searching for documents in your Drive, and making printed text machine-readable. In my tests, the OCR worked flawlessly, allowing me to search documents by the words found in the files. Furthermore, it let me select and copy text from a scanned document to my clipboard, so I could paste the words elsewhere. It's quite useful.
Many Useful Security Features
Microsoft employs its proprietary multi-factor authentication application, Microsoft Authenticator, to safeguard your OneDrive accounts. This app is one step in your two-step authentication when logging in to OneDrive or any other Microsoft 365 application. Although Microsoft Authenticator is the suggested MFA option, you can use other approved MFA applications like 1Password, Authy, or Google Authenticator.
The second security tier? Microsoft encrypts all your data at all subscription tiers. Files and file updates are encrypted with security keys, and any file larger than 64KB is split into chunks, each with its own encryption key. That's how Microsoft automatically safeguards data, but you can manually bolster security on the user end. When sharing files as links, you can set passwords and expiration dates on the file itself in the link settings menu.
OneDrive's key feature over Google Drive is the ability to set passwords to protect individual files. Google also paywalls some of its best security options behind its highest tiers. Microsoft’s security and compliance are the same across all its tiers except for its advanced cyberattack protection, which is reserved for the highest business tier. Egnyte continues to excel in security, especially in its ability to automatically classify documents in its drive.