I have a Windows Active Directory environment (Server 2019) with around 15–17 users.
Each user has access to a shared drive called “Common Share” and a personal shared folder (named after their username) for storing personal or work-related data.
I attempted to redirect user folders like Downloads, Documents, and Desktop to their respective AD-mapped drives, but it didn’t work well.
I’m now looking for a backup solution with built-in file versioning.
I’m considering installing Syncthing on all machines to sync data to another Proxmox server VM, which will then back up to Sharepoint OneDrive as a cloud backup(encrypted).
This seems like a cost-effective option, but I’m open to better alternatives if there are any
Frankly speaking, my AD was set up by a third-party vendor, as I’m not very proficient in it. After you mentioned VSS, I searched through my AD and found that VSS is already set up. However, the real issue seems to be with the profile.
What I might need is Roaming Profiles, as I want all my users’ data (including folders like Desktop and Downloads) to be stored in AD.
Currently, there’s a GPO in my AD for folder redirection, but I’m not entirely sure where to find the specific settings. If you could assist me a bit, I’d be happy to share a screenshot of the AD configuration.
What I need is Roaming Profiles, but there seems to be an issue with the profile creation, and the Roaming Profiles are not working properly. I’m not sure how to fix this. Right now, some of my profiles are local, and others are not. I’m unsure how to convert all of them to Roaming Profiles.
Generally I wouldn’t use roaming profiles unless I was running a RDS cluster where a user could be logging into multiple RDS/terminal servers and using applications that required it.
If your users are logging into PCs and you are looking to just have copies of files from their Desktop/Documents folder, etc, I would just use folder redirection. This is native to group policy.
Thanks for the link. I realized that some users were not members of this policy, so I’ve added these users to the Folder Redirection policy. I have one more question: Currently, VSS backups are being done to our other local backup server, which is incremental. I know this server supports file versioning, but how can I set up a daily backup to OneDrive? At the moment I have Business Basic license. I can purchase a specific license just for backup purposes if needed. Also, how should I encrypt the backup by default when it is uploaded to OneDrive?
Regarding Folder Redirection: Let’s say I have User X. I can see their profile data on my server but cannot access it. When taking a VSS backup, how much of the Folder Redirection data will be backed up? Additionally, I’d like to keep all versions of files, regardless of how old they get. Can I do that?
Not sure why you would want to save server backups to OneDrive. You would run out of space pretty quickly. I would look at something like Backblaze to backup your servers offsite.
If you want versioning saved you need to make sure whatever backup solution you use supports VSS.
I use roaming profiles because my students will be logging into many different computers during a week, saves a lot of bandwidth moving profiles from one local computer to another local computer. Was a big deal back when we only had a 100mbps network. Might not be such an issue now that I’m redirecting the folders for almost everything.
The main reason I’m leaning towards OneDrive is that I just need a simple way to back up files. For Server, I do a full backup, keep one copy locally, and store another on OneDrive. So really, all I need from the backup solution is to keep our files safe.
Even with around 15–17 users, our total backup size is only about 200–300 GB. We’re mostly dealing with documents and PDFs—nothing too large or complex. We used to run some software on a local Hyper-V VM, but since the vendor moved everything to the cloud, that’s no longer something I need to worry about.
What I do have to stay on top of is the files and documents our users create and store. That’s also why I asked about file versioning. We had a situation where an employee left and, before going, locked all the important Excel files with passwords. Luckily, another team member had copies, so we avoided a big problem.
For a small AD environment like yours, your Syncthing → Proxmox → OneDrive setup could work, but it might get tricky managing versioning and conflicts across multiple users. Another option to consider is Windows Server Backup with VSS (Volume Shadow Copy) for file versioning on your shared drives. You could also look into Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition, which supports up to 10 workloads for free and has file-level restores with versioning. Both options would integrate nicely with AD and give you more control over backups without relying heavily on multiple sync layers.