When and how does combining MS365 and my home network make sense? Let’s dig in to the details and the history.
Like many of you I am sure, I have customized my home computing systems for my hobbies and interests. Over the past thirty years, I have placed several computers on a combined wired and wireless network. Each PC became focused on specific needs. Applications and documents were generally localized and backed up on a NAS. My basic home network is shown above, with three desktops on a local switch for wired networking. I have other devices on wireless, not shown above.
On the left is my Radios computer, where I run all my SDR and radio control/decoding software. Hardware is USB or LAN connected. Since most of my software development is related to radio work, I have my Integrated Development Environments for Windows and Arduino on this machine, as well. Finally, I do some Office documents.
In the center is my Main computer where I organize my life around Outlook. Heavy duty editing using Office and also by WordPress blogs use this machine. Finally, I have a ton of reference materials – books, magazines, and articles – organized by folders, Zotero and Calibre. I don’t call this my main computer for nothing!
Third, on the right, is my Lab PC. This computer is in my electronics and 3D printing workshop. I use this machine for CAD and 3D printing, as well as some Office editing.
Lastly is my Network Attached Storage. This Synology 4TB NAS provides a shared drive and media streaming through the entire house. Most importantly, I run SyncBackFree on all computers to do regular backups to the NAS.
MS365 and My Home Network – Migration Strategies
I am considering two migration strategies. First is “leave it alone”. I would simply use Microsoft 365 to download all the desktop applications on each computer. Everything else would stay the same, except for replacing Radios and Lab to new machines that will run Windows 11.
Second is to “migrate the office work to OneDrive”. With OneDrive Backup and Sync, I can move all my Documents folders to the cloud and have a common platform for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access documents across my network (and remotely). This will be good for collaboration, as well. It will also require cleaning up my Documents folders to remove application folders that relate only to software on each machine.
Finally, this second strategy will replace my existing shared folder, and will require revising my backups to the NAS. (OneDrive is not a backup, as it’s content resides only in one place.)
Food for thought.
Everybody rolls their own solution eventually, John, based on their particular needs.
I run a mixed windows/mac environment – largely Mac but there are still several Windows computers: including the one used by my wife. We have a family M365 subscription and our main storage uses OneDrive. I use iCloud for photos and other stuff. We both use laptops and the ability to access files whilst travelling is a must.
As you say, OneDrive is not a backup – well, not quite. It does have file history, so you can roll back to previous versions of files. I adopt the “3 copies in two locations” approach to backup. Copy 1 is on the computer itself, Copy 2 is in the OneDrive cloud (and therefore at a second location), Copy 3 is on TimeMachine (for the Macs) or VEEAM (for the Windows computers). The instances of copy 3 allow a bare metal restore – including to different hardware.
The last element is Archiving: because a Backup is not an Archive. Not everything needs to be archived, but archives are immutable – they don’t get deleted by rotation strategies. I have a NAS in the house, with another in the Shack down the garden. I have a set of folders (in and out of OneDrive) that are snapshotted using a Linux tool called `rsnapshot` to the NAS (which is actually a Proxmox server running, amongst other things, `expenology`. Independently, the house NAS syncs with the Shack NAS.