Does it make sense to use my local OneDrive folder as my actual work folder and keep local copies of files only *and only* there?

Question

I thought that it would be practical to move all my work folders structure and all of their contents to my local OneDrive folder (which I've already changed from the default location to a new folder in a second drive, a big SSD). As I work on this sole local copy of any file and save it, it would be uploaded to the OneDrive cloud. There would be no duplicate copies of local files occupying valuable disk space and also no need to copy the files I've been creating & updating to the OneDrive folder manually.

I wonder whether there could be any downside to this approach.

Is there any chance that a file could be deleted accidentally from the cloud storage without my intervention and it gets deleted from my local storage in the next sync, unbeknownst to me ?

Can I completely trust the reliability of the service ?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Is there any chance that a file could be deleted accidentally from the cloud storage without my intervention and it gets deleted from my local storage in the next sync, unbeknownst to me ?

It is possible, sync implies bidirectionality. If your little brother has access to your onedrive and deletes a file, it will be removed locally too. You can restore from the onedrive trash, but you have to discover this 'user error' within 30 days, or 3 days for files outside the trash size limit.

Another more obvious thing is that deleting locally will remove them from the cloud, so you might have a false sense of security (similar to RAID1). Some malware or malfunctioning program could delete files, again if you don't catch this 'user error' in time the loss will be permanent.

To avoid the false sense of security you should have a true (non-sync) backup, e.g. on an external drive.

Answer 2

I would simply say: NEVER put all your eggs in the one basket, especially if the files in question and valuable, even ill-replaceable as with a lot of image material. I hope you never get to the state of being very ill in the stomach over something that you could have bypassed. Cloud storage is rather neat as far as "one flick and its upstairs".But Cloud has its downsides too, myself I use a onsite NAS WD EX2 with raid capability. I have been there where files should have been, the operative word here is "should" Good luck!