OneDrive is your personal work drive — think of it as "My Documents" for the cloud. SharePoint is the company filing cabinet, where anything a team needs to share, version or keep when someone leaves should live. In practice: store company files in a SharePoint library (usually surfaced through a Microsoft Teams channel). Use OneDrive only for personal drafts and working copies. Getting this wrong is the number-one cause of data loss when staff leave.
What each one actually is
Both are part of Microsoft 365 and both sit on top of the same SharePoint storage engine — the difference is scope and ownership.
- OneDrive for Business — one drive per user. The user owns it. When the user leaves, the drive gets deleted on a retention clock (30 days by default).
- SharePoint — libraries owned by the organisation, attached to Teams, Groups or standalone sites. Files survive staff changes, can be versioned, permissioned by group, and follow a retention policy you define.
The rule that prevents 90% of problems
If more than one person ever needs the file, it does not belong in OneDrive. That includes "just sharing a link" with a colleague. Shared OneDrive links break when the owner leaves, when permissions reset, or when someone moves the file into a subfolder. SharePoint handles all of that properly because the site, not a person, is the owner.
Use OneDrive for: personal drafts, temporary downloads, your desktop sync, screenshots you haven't sorted yet. Use SharePoint for: anything with a client name on it, anything finance touches, anything HR touches, and anything marked "final".
How to structure SharePoint for a small business
Resist the urge to create one site per team on day one. Start with a small number of well-scoped sites:
- Company — policies, HR handbook, templates, marketing collateral.
- Operations — client files, projects, delivery. Usually surfaced through a Teams channel.
- Finance — locked down, restricted membership, separate retention.
- Confidential — board papers, legal, sensitive HR. Separate site, stricter sharing.
Permission at the site or library level, not the folder level. Folder-level permissions are where SharePoint governance goes to die.
Storage limits and what "1 TB per user" really means
OneDrive gives each licensed user 1 TB on Business plans. Plenty. SharePoint gives your tenant 1 TB + 10 GB per licensed user; you can add 10 GB blocks for about £0.20/GB/month. The Microsoft Learn SharePoint service limits spell out the per-list and per-site caps — worth reading before you try to dump 500,000 files into one library.
Sharing: internal vs guest vs "anyone with the link"
Three sharing modes matter:
- Internal — signed-in users from your tenant. Default and safest.
- Guest — external user invited by email, signs in with their own Microsoft/Google account. Auditable.
- Anyone with the link — unauthenticated. Off by default on tenants we configure. Turn it off unless you have a specific reason.
For Cyber Essentials and for basic hygiene, disable anonymous sharing tenant-wide and require guest authentication. Configure sharing defaults at the tenant level in the SharePoint admin centre, not per site.
Backups — Microsoft doesn't do this
Microsoft protects the platform. They don't protect you from your own deletions, ransomware encrypting synced folders, or a departing employee torching their OneDrive on the way out. The recycle bin holds items for up to 93 days, after which they're gone. For compliance, client-data and SRA/DSP Toolkit-style requirements, you need third-party Microsoft 365 backup: Dropsuite, Veeam Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365, or Acronis are the usual picks. Budget £3–£5 per user per month. See our notes on the 3-2-1 backup rule for the logic, and our backup service for the delivery.
Migrating from a file server to SharePoint
Don't lift-and-shift. Most on-prem file servers accumulate 10+ years of rubbish — nested folders 15 levels deep, 200-character paths, locked Excel files with passwords nobody knows. SharePoint has its own limits (400-character paths, some reserved characters) and won't tolerate the mess.
We do migrations in three phases: audit and cleanse, pilot with one team, then phased rollout with change freeze. A 500 GB server migration typically takes 3–6 weeks and is priced at £2,500–£6,500. It's one of the highest-value Microsoft 365 projects we run because it fixes years of bad storage habits at the same time.
Getting the licence right
SharePoint and OneDrive are included in every Microsoft 365 Business plan (Basic, Standard, Premium). If you want the sensitivity labels, retention policies, DLP and Conditional Access that make governance actually enforceable, you need Business Premium. That's also the licence that unlocks proper device policies, Defender and Intune, so the upgrade usually pays for itself through risk reduction.
How Syntek handles it
We audit your current tenant, design a site structure, migrate your files, train the team, and lock down sharing defaults. Most projects run 4–8 weeks. Book a Microsoft 365 review or Get in touch.
FAQ
Should I put company files in SharePoint or OneDrive?
Company or team files belong in SharePoint (via a Teams-backed document library). OneDrive is only for personal working drafts. If more than one person ever needs it, it shouldn't live in OneDrive.
What happens to a user's OneDrive when they leave?
By default, the OneDrive is retained for 30 days then deleted. An admin can extend retention and transfer files, but everything there is at risk if handover isn't done before the account is removed.
How much storage do I get?
OneDrive: 1 TB per user on Business plans. SharePoint: 1 TB per tenant plus 10 GB per licensed user, with more available as add-on storage.
Is OneDrive and SharePoint backed up by Microsoft?
Microsoft protects the service, not your data choices. You need a third-party Microsoft 365 backup to recover deleted files beyond recycle-bin retention.