How Long Does It Take to Migrate to OneDrive?

You might be expecting an answer of two to six weeks to migrate to OneDrive if you’ve gone through other large migrations or just heard about the process from other businesses. However, OneDrive for Business migrations are much less complicated and, in many cases, can be done in a matter of hours.

Just by asking that question, though, you are in a better position to manage the process. Too many IT leaders commit to a new technology without a complete implementation plan. Thoroughness in planning makes all the difference in the speed and security of your migration.

What Happens When You Migrate to OneDrive?

Perhaps the biggest difference between OneDrive for Business migrations and massive cloud migrations using something like Microsoft Office 365 is that you won’t be moving emails, which means you won’t have to deal with the many complications they bring.

OneDrive for Business creates a personal cloud-based location for each employee, giving them one terabyte of storage that they can access securely from anywhere. The actual process of moving the files goes quickly, but that should be your least concern. It’s all the careful planning and investigation leading up to the migration that makes it fast and safe for everyone.

6 Steps Before You Migrate to OneDrive

The planning phase consists of six stages:

1. Gathering data on all the files, documents and websites that need to be moved.
2. Plotting out how to keep all permissions and security measures intact in the transfer.
3. Making sure the data is backed up and restorable to assure business continuity.
4. Assigning a team responsible for quality assurance and post-implementation issues.
5. Communicating with all stakeholders about the timing of the migration.
6. Making sure all employees receive adequate training on using OneDrive efficiently.

During the first phase, the team should eliminate any possible delays relating to file names using invalid characters, errors in paths and any file type/size restrictions.

Dedupe and Purge

It’s likely that there will be a great deal of file duplication and older files that should be purged due to updates.

Without OneDrive, people tend to share documents by email, which is a nightmare for version control and a serious issue for server storage space. In fact, those are two of the biggest reasons to move to OneDrive, so you should make sure your migration team has a plan to deal with deduplication and data purges.

Speed Test Time Map

Even after your files are clean, your team is ready, and everyone is onboard with the migration schedule, there are several other considerations that factor into the length of the migration. Typically, uploads are scheduled to take place overnight due to reduced traffic, but that’s not always the case.

Make sure your team has a reliable speed test time map to work from based on different days of the week. IT should also be aware of any other delays related to Microsoft’s servers.

Remember also that individual computers or laptops may have variable upload speeds that could end up creating a bottleneck for the entire process.

Time Beats Money

Time is more important than money in the new competitive marketplace, which is why platforms like OneDrive have become essential business tools. Keeping mission-critical files and websites in the cloud speeds up the response time of your business and collapses the sales cycle.

Today’s new mobile workforce can’t afford to be tied down with files in a single physical location. Anyone who has to go back to the office to get a document is going to lose out to someone who is better prepared for life on the road.

When you’re ready to accelerate your business, contact Agile IT and learn more about our file server and OneDrive migration services. Migrate to OneDrive, but do it the right way so the transfer is smooth, fast and, most of all, safe.