So, we are starting on our journey of learning OneDrive for Business. I have a goal in mind for this post and that is to Migrate my Corporate File Server up to SharePoint Document Libraries using the OneDrive for Business Sync Client.

I have been running the same File Server for my business since all the way back to 2008. It is actually running on a copy of Windows 2008 Storage Server and it has just always worked so why move it.

Well nearly 10 years later seemed like as good of time as any. I know a lot of you out there are reading this and laughing but we all have these old dinosaurs kicking around.

 

The plan for this migration of nearly 1 TB of data was to keep this as dead simple as possible.

At first I looked at the option of installing the OneDrive for Business Sync Client and then copying all of my respective file in.

This was a really bad idea because I would run out of space very quickly on my staging laptop.

The process is supposed to be painless, right?

 

In doing what I do and that is researching options I discovered that the solution is actually quite simple.

You can map a network drive to your File Server (Can be CIFS, NFS, SMB) anything that can be mounted in windows really.

Here is what a few of these mapped drives looked like.

 

Then I created myself some Document Libraries to store my files.

 

Once created I simply opened the library and clicked on the Sync Button which we learned about in the previous Blog Post.

 

Then click on the Sync now link.

 

 

Say yes to switch the Apps

 

 

And click on Start Sync

 

 

This will configure our shared sync location on the G: as seen below

 

(I do have a few others already created but you will get the idea here)

 

 

Let’s view this in the Folder Structure:

 

 

Now that we have a Sync Location we will use a neat little trick where we can create a link between two folders or files called a Symbolic Link.

 

To do this we can use the MKLink.exe Command Line Utility that is included in Windows 10.

 

You can see how I have linked in all the Mapped Network Drives here:

 

 

Here is what the output looks like

 

Y:\>mklink /d “g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\T\_CurDev” y:\_CurDev\

symbolic link created for g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\T\_CurDev <<===>> y:\_CurDev\

 

Y:\>mklink /d “g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\T\_se” y:\_se\

symbolic link created for g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\T\_se <<===>> y:\_se\

 

Y:\>mklink /d “g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\T\_Customer” y:\_clients\

symbolic link created for g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\T\_Customer <<===>> y:\_clients\

 

Y:\>mklink /d “g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\TriCon Elite Consulting Team Site – BackOffice” s:\

Cannot create a file when that file already exists.

 

Y:\>mklink /d “g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\TriCon Elite Consulting Team Site – BackOffice\BackOffice” s:\

symbolic link created for g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\TriCon Elite Consulting Team Site – BackOffice\BackOffice <<===>> s:\

 

Y:\>mklink /d “g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\TriCon Elite Consulting Team Site – Sales”\ v:\

Cannot create a file when that file already exists.

 

Y:\>mklink /d “g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\TriCon Elite Consulting Team Site – Sales”\Sales v:\

symbolic link created for g:\TriCon-CurDev\SharePoint\TriCon Elite Consulting Team Site – Sales\Sales <<===>> v:\

 

Then when you do a Directory listing from the command prompt look at how the view shows the Symbolic links.

 

 

And this is what it looks like to the file system in Explorer:

 

Now all you need to do is wait and your files will nicely start syncing up to your Document Libraries in SharePoint Online using the OneDrive for Business Sync Client.

 

When you are done just kill the Symbolic Links and Disconnect the Shares and now you have just migrated all your important files up to Office 365 SharePoint Online without having to copy a single file.

 

Hope you enjoy,

 

Thanks,

 

Dave