Safe to store SAS datasets in a folder that is synchronized?

[JamesPower4]

Hello: I'm being overly careful, so please forgive me if this is a naive question.

Can SAS datasets safely be kept in a folder that is being synchronized to the "cloud", such as a OneDrive folder?

I'm asking because I know that Access databases definitely cannot be stored in such locations - if the database is open when synchronization occurs the database is corrupted (guess how I know that!).

I assume it's safe with SAS datasets, because my understanding is that SAS always writes out a new dataset before deleting its predecessor, so that synchronization is unlikely to mess with it. Nonetheless if anyone can reassure me I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

[ballardw]

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@JamesPower4 wrote:

Hello: I'm being overly careful, so please forgive me if this is a naive question.

Can SAS datasets safely be kept in a folder that is being synchronized to the "cloud", such as a OneDrive folder?

I'm asking because I know that Access databases definitely cannot be stored in such locations - if the database is open when synchronization occurs the database is corrupted (guess how I know that!).

I assume it's safe with SAS datasets, because my understanding is that SAS always writes out a new dataset before deleting its predecessor, so that synchronization is unlikely to mess with it. Nonetheless if anyone can reassure me I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

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I've been working for more than a year will all my SAS datasets except my work folder on a OneDrive location with no problems of data corruption. My data sets seldom exceed a few megabytes though.

[JamesPower4]

Many thanks for the quick reply. I do believe it's OK, but just to be safe I want to find out if anyone has encountered corruption of their datasets.