Comparing OneDrive and OneDrive for Business

Two services with similar names, OneDrive and OneDrive for Business, offer hosted document storage in Microsoft’s data centers. Both services include file synchronization to make files easily accessible from multiple devices as well as enhance document collaboration among users. Both also provide access through a browser, dedicated applications, and Office applications. However, there are fundamental differences as well: OneDrive is free and targets consumers while OneDrive for Business has associated costs and supplements Office 365 or on-premises SharePoint 2013 to target businesses. Administrators need to understand the costs, features, and security of both to determine how to best use each service.

OneDrive Fundamentals

OneDrive (formerly named SkyDrive) is Microsoft’s public hosted storage and synchronization technology. Originally designed primarily for consumers, it is increasingly included in Microsoft products sold to businesses, including Windows 8.1 and Office 2013. OneDrive enables users to synchronize folders and their included documents from one or more Windows or Mac computers with the OneDrive hosted storage service. As documents are added to the user’s OneDrive folder, they are automatically synchronized to the OneDrive service as long as Internet connectivity is available.