Need to move your current file share system to O365? This upgrade or migration will look different depending on your organisation’s current environment. You’re likely to have a few options when it comes to moving your file share to Office 365, both in where it is migrated to and the method in which it’s moved. Here we discuss the different methods of migrating your file share.
How you go about migrating your file share will depend on how big and complex it is. For smaller files shares, you may simply be able to drag and drop the files to their new location. However, due to the simplicity of this method, you may not be able to bring all the metadata across. It may also not be in line with your organisation’s direction to improve document management, collaboration, or day to day ways of working.
If SharePoint is your intended destination, you have some more comprehensive tools at your disposal. The SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) is a free tool that offers your file share a one-way trip to SharePoint Online. Some users find SPMT a little basic or restrictive for their needs, but for a free tool, it is effective in more ways than one. It allows you to move files and libraries around and feed in information from other sources. Some other features include running migrations through PowerShell and running bulk migrations through a CSV or JSON input file.
An even more complex tool to migrate your file share to Office 365 on offer is ShareGate, which is widely considered a leader in SharePoint and 0365 migration, including file share and other sources. They have one of the best intuitive UIs (User Interface), and a PowerShell API that can build powerful migration scripts to communicate with file shares and their destinations. ShareGate also has other tools that your organisation will benefit from, such as analysing source and destination environments. Another benefit of ShareGate is that it is enhanced to migrate files using multiple threads whilst still handling SharePoint’s throttling requirements. Even though ShareGate requires an annual license for each end user, installing ShareGate on a VM with a shared login account can reduce how many licenses you need.
There are many who consider SharePoint outdated, especially when Teams is on the front end. It is still the superior document collaboration tool, but some users find the additional steps to search for files inconvenient. That’s why some prefer to sync their SharePoint libraries to Windows Explorer, so you can go directly there rather than opening SharePoint. When you drop files into Windows Explorer, they can then be synced to cloud. Like the first method we discussed, this process is convenient if you don’t need to set metadata, policies, etc.
This approach is not for the faint of heart, but it can be achieved with the right IT specialists on the task. Essentially, you’ll be creating your own version of a migration tool. The best way to do this is by using the SharePoint API – it’s available to anyone. Building a script with PowerShell means the requests will run sequentially, therefore won’t overload your system by running multiple requests. However, you will still need to implement checking of the throttling to ensure you don’t overload the system.
Ready to migrate your file share to Office 365? It may be a big process, but there are plenty of migration options available. If you don’t fancy tackling the task yourself, Propelle is here to help. We run workshops with new clients so that we can understand your pain points and explain the pros and cons of each of these processes, helping you find the right solution. Give us a shout today.
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