Enable differential sync (only sync parts of the files that changed)
Today OneDrive implements differential sync only for Office files (that is, syncing only the changes made to the file, instead of the entire file). It would be a significant improvement for this capability to work against any files in OneDrive - so smaller changes to a file would result in less data needing to be transmitted, meaning less time to sync changes back and forth, and more efficient use of network bandwidth.
PJD
shared this idea
We announced differential sync at the SharePoint Conference in May. We’ve already rolled it out to our OneDrive personal users and plan to roll it out to the rest of our users by end of this year. See this blog post for more details: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-OneDrive-Blog/OneDrive-announcements-SharePoint-Conference-2019/ba-p/616047.
207 comments
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Anonymous
commented
Sad this has to take 5 years to develop.
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Anonymous
commented
I'm also having to sync a whole PST file instead of sync at the moment with Onedrive on Office 365
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Effy
commented
Will the differential sync work on PST (DB files) files as well?
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Rafael Maciel
commented
Differential sync is working great with personal accounts. Just made an change to one of my VHDs and only parts of it were uploaded (checked with external bandwidth monitoring tool, it doesn't show the size for the part that was being uploaded, the bar just moves faster). Its just for the ODFB users that was delayed (doesn't work yet)...
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Anonymous
commented
***- ODfB Differential sync was on the roadmap for Q4 2019. Now it's delivery is expected Q1 2020. FRUSTRATING.
And Randall Jr. below is RIGHT. MS is playing games. The big boys pay big money to get NEARLY working solutions, but not nearly enough. This type of capability should have been baked in from day 1. -
Marius
commented
Do i get that right that all OneDrive personal users are already able to use this feature? Or did Gaia Carini mean by "our users" Microsoft employees?
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Knut Arne
commented
## Differential sync for all files
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OneDrive is the files app in Microsoft 365 where you can work with all your files—your individual work files and the files shared with you across Microsoft 365—on PC or Mac, across browsers, and across devices with highly rated apps for iOS and Android. Improvements to sync include *differential sync for all files*—Office files already feature differential sync—which will accelerate sync and reduce network utilization, and support for Windows Virtual Desktop, currently in preview. These improvements enable organizations to deliver cloud-connected experiences and users to work with cloud files within native experiences like File Explorer and Finder.
- _[2019-05-21] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2019/05/21/sharepoint-home-sites-microsoft-365-innovations-intelligent-workplace/_Differential sync to all file types stored in OneDrive
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Differential Sync saves time and network utilization [roadmap: 33412]
Differential sync brings the ability to sync only the parts of large files that have changed, not the entire file. This makes the file synchronization process faster for these files. Currently OneDrive supports differential sync for Office 2016 files. Later this year, we will bring the ability to leverage differential sync to all file types stored in OneDrive and SharePoint.
_[]_ https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-OneDrive-Blog/OneDrive-announcements-SharePoint-Conference-2019/ba-p/616047 -
Leonardo
commented
open in 2014 and today in 2019 is in the plans? Is this site outdated or bankrupt?
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Hany Sabir
commented
Hi, do we have to enable the feature of is it enabled by default? Thanks
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dsghi
commented
There is an official announcement on this page, with a number of additional features: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2019/05/21/sharepoint-home-sites-microsoft-365-innovations-intelligent-workplace/
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dsghi
commented
Lol Randal, what a rediculous comment. So the reason differential sync is such a difficult problem is due to the various layers of encryption that are used to protect our files which are stored in OneDrive. Great news though, this should be marked as in progress, there was just a demonstration of this last week at SharePoint conference. It will be released by the end of the year.
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Randal Junior commented
I think I found a explanation. They didn't allow differential sync to discourage the sync of large files. So they can offer a bigger storage, with less actual server storage. It's like a flight overbooking, they share the empty space across more users.
The fewer big files that are less accessed, cause of the bandwidth requirements, are kept in cheaper and slower storage. They win on both sides. -
Carl
commented
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Carl
commented
How long does it take to get suggestions put into reality, are MS still thinking about it since July 2018? Its so frustrating to get no feedback. Would be interested to know how many developers are actually on the OneDrive dev team as clearly things aren't happening quickly enough.
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Caleb
commented
any updates in the last year?
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Anonymous
commented
This is a must. Have 3 votes.
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Dan
commented
A feature supported by all the "other options" for years...
A feature that can have a HUGE impact on the sync performance (only the CORE function of the application_...
Nearly 5 years since being requested...
Nearly 1 year since last update that actually said "Stay Tuned"...
The #1 voted feature request by thousands of votes....
Given the above, surely, you can at least give regular updates?What-ever the answer is, it would be better than silence...
even...
"we tried, we failed, our infrastructure blah blah blah, excuse excuse"
"we don't care"
"other things are still more important"
"try Dropbox - it already does this for years"
Just say something!
Kill off the false hopes or give real hope. -
Rafael Maciel
commented
I'll probably die soon and not be able to see this feature rolled out!
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Georg Jiří Überall commented
my god, I just added some tags to a huge video file and the whole thing uploaded again! This is just crazy
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Anonymous
commented
Has this feature been enabled now? It sure seems to be. A 115MB file that I change constantly now (for the past month or so) only takes a few seconds to upload when it has always taken a few minutes before (and completely saturated my bandwidth if I didn't have it throttled).
