Microsoft OneDrive vs Google Drive for Development Work

Every time I try OneDrive I always seem to have issues with it these days (used to be fine in the Windows 8.1 days before placeholders were removed and used for everything).

I stored all my .NET Core projects on there and when upgrading them from 2.2 to 3.0, took a copy of the folder and then worked on the new folders to get apps updated and ready to deploy and then deleted the 2.2 folders once complete. As soon as I copied a folder it crippled the PCs performance and took days to sync my 8 small website projects, during which time working in VS was frustrating and it sometimes failed to load IIS Express due to OneDrive taking over all resources.

Trying to use Google Drive File Stream instead, it has none of these performance issues working and syncing quickly but then publishing the project fails about 90% of the time due to locks on files so I must close the project, copy it to a local folder, open from there, publish and then delete the new folder.

I do use GitHub for versioning and backup too but often want to quickly open different projects on different PCs so storing on OneDrive is helpful but it seems I pay the price by having a slow and hot device as a result with very poor battery life.

Also I can never use OneDrive for Office documents as always seem to end up running into conflicts and multiple versions of files when it is only me editing them (works ok with non-Office files aside from issue above) – e.g. copy and paste a Word file in OneDrive using Explorer and then click to open it and you will then find you cannot save it and have to select a version of the file to keep or possibly the only option is to discard changes or save with another name. Also sometimes it duplicates files by sufficing the PC name on the end.

Does anyone successfully use a cloud storage provider with VS?

Thanks

Robin

Conversation 9 comments

  • coeus89

    20 October, 2019 - 2:14 pm

    <p>When i was working on .netcore 2.1 and 2.2 i had to take my projects out of onedrive. It would randomly take control of needed files. For development work, i have heard from multiple people that only dropbox (not google or onedrive) won't screw with their editors. It is very frustrating since msft makes both onedrive and visual studio but that is the current state of things.?</p>

    • illuminated

      23 October, 2019 - 7:49 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#482175">In reply to coeus89:</a></em></blockquote><p>Just a couple of days ago I had a visual studio file locked by Dropbox client. Could not save modified file no matter what. It took me a while to figure out that the file was located in a dropbox folder. </p><p><br></p>

      • coeus89

        25 October, 2019 - 10:47 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#483074">In reply to illuminated:</a></em></blockquote><p>Welp, there goes that theory then lol. I guess sync doesn't play well with development in general :(</p>

  • christian.hvid

    20 October, 2019 - 3:26 pm

    <p>I've found out the hard way that storing your repos on OneDrive is close to impossible for Node.js based development like Angular. The sheer number of files in a project – often 50,000 or more – is enough to choke OneDrive completely. For .NET projects, where the number of files is typically a few hundred or a few thousand, it works reasonably well. The caveat here being that it cannot sync files that are locked by VS, such as storage-ide.wal and storage-ide.shm. But those are typically not files you need to secure (and they will sync as soon as you close VS).</p><p><br></p><p>Most of the time, though, I prefer to just keep the code on my local drive and run commit + push at least once a day. </p>

  • jrswarr

    Premium Member
    21 October, 2019 - 8:02 am

    <p>If source is kept in a repository like GitHub, then I see no big advantage in using either Google or OneDrive. Also I'm not sure that I really like the idea of modifying the same source code from different computers. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • illuminated

      22 October, 2019 - 9:13 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#482316">In reply to jrswarr:</a></em></blockquote><p>So true. Github is great for development. Even the free tier. It is true source control not some poor substitute such as OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox. *drives were not designed with developers in mind. </p>

  • robinwilson16

    22 October, 2019 - 8:04 pm

    <p>Thanks all for the answers.</p><p><br></p><p>It does seem mad that the only things Microsoft OneDrive is incompatible with is Microsoft Visual Studio projects and Microsoft Office documents. Anything not made by Microsoft syncs and works fine on OneDrive.</p><p>Also the fact that OneDrive really slows Windows 10 down when syncing lots of files but Google Drive File Stream does not seem to impact performance at all that I can notice and syncs much faster too.</p><p><br></p><p>I like the fact I can quickly open one of my projects to get some code or even search through them and it is less work than having to set up a repository and issue a pull command.</p><p><br></p><p>I've found if I store on Google Drive File Stream and keep trying to publish it will work eventually.</p><p>Just wish this stuff worked better and Google Drive business offerings allowed you to have different plans for different users as otherwise it is just too expensive to upgrade everyone to 100GB .</p>

    • warren

      26 October, 2019 - 2:45 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#482768">In reply to robinwilson16:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Huh? Office works just fine with OneDrive. I can have the same PowerPoint or Excel open on two different computers, at the same time, and changes from one sync up to the other via OneDrive pretty much in real time.</p><p><br></p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    23 October, 2019 - 4:43 am

    <p>I've never had any problems copying directories – I copied and moved around the folders with my RAW files and Office documents, around 250GB, and there were no performance problems.</p><p>But OneDrive and Google Drive are probably the wrong tool for source code management. GitHub/GitLab with proper source control would be a much better solution.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC