OneDrive finally implements differential synchronization-Yoshikazu Akutsu's Windows Weekly Report | My Navi News My Navi News My Navi

I think many people will continue to work from home after May 7 as the government has decided to extend the state of emergency. Personally, I feel that the responsiveness has decreased more and more, probably due to the increase in Internet traffic, such as web conferencing for work and video viewing for private use.

According to IIJ's engineer blog, IIJ's FLET'S compatible services (optical line/ADSL) have an overall increase in traffic volume during the daytime on weekdays, and the amount of uploaded data is clearly increasing. IIJ sees an increase in video conferences and online drinking parties as one of the main reasons.

While I was thinking about such a thing, an announcement came that OneDrive and OneDrive for Business implemented a differential synchronization function. According to a tweet on April 28 by Omar Shahine, Director of Program Management for OneDrive and SharePoint at Microsoft, the development of this feature has been completed and the rollout has begun.

The origin of OneDrive's differential synchronization function dates back to the opinion sent to the community site in August 2014. Microsoft commented that it was a "good proposal," but announced that it had started development at the SharePoint Conference 2019 held in May 2019. At that time, Microsoft said, "We will provide the function in the second half of 2019," and it was registered as ID 33412 in the Microsoft 365 roadmap in late May.

- Yoshikazu Akutsu's Windows Weekly Report | Mynavi News Mynavi News Mynavi " title="OneDrive finally implements differential synchronization - Yoshikazu Akutsu's Windows Weekly Report | Mynavi News Mynavi News Mynavi" >

So I did a quick look at how delta sync works. If you create an image file (BMP) in the OneDrive for Business folder and process part of the image after the upload is completed, the message "Preparing for synchronization" will appear, and then the changed part (difference) of the file has started uploading.

ID33412 in the Microsoft 365 roadmap is tagged "OneDrive for Business", but on the community site admins say it has "rolled out to personal and business users." This means that delta sync is available for OneDrive as well as OneDrive for Business. When I verified using the same method as above, I was able to confirm the operation of differential synchronization with OneDrive.

Differential synchronization of OneDrive and OneDrive for Business was limited to Office files until now, but with this implementation, it has been expanded to all file types. By uploading only the changed parts of the file, it consumes less network bandwidth and benefits all Internet users. It took 6 years from user request to implementation, but it can be said that the release of the function under these circumstances is an exquisite timing.

An IT writer born in 1972. After working as an editorial staff for various PC magazines such as general PC magazines, DOS/V magazines, and Windows magazines, he became independent. While loving Windows and Linux, he has written many PC-related books. In recent years, not only BtoC but also BtoB solutions coverage and interviews are the main battlefield. I have been taking it every day without setting a liver-free day, but the γ-GTP level has increased sharply, and urgent action is required.