Mediaboss Marketing

Lets be honest, the old Google Drive Backup & Sync option (which still exists) is not reliable. Thats been my experience, at least. It constantly failed to synchronize hundreds of files and continued to get stuck retracing its steps each time I would turn my PC on. Google Drive File Stream is much more reliable and works by streaming your files to you not unlike a Chromebooks Files app does. Now, Google is unifying the two solutions to reduce confusion. My take is that theyre allowing File Stream to gobble up Backup & Sync because its old news.

Thats not to say that the ability to locally store your cloud files instead of streaming them to you will go away. The term unifying is being used because they truly are creating an all-in-one solution for those who prefer one over the other. Backup & Sync was built for consumers while File Stream was built for Workspace users. Ive found that File Stream is a much better solution for me as a consumer and as a business user, so Ive opted for it over the old tool thanks to its reliability and rapid access to my files.

If youre interested in previewing the Google Drive for Desktop beta and youre a Workspace user, you can fill out this test application to try to get access to it before it fully rolls out to everyone later this year. The goal with this change is that IT departments will no longer have to guess or work out which solution a customer is utilizing before they offer them support they will effectively be one in the same before long.

The new Google Drive for Desktop as its being called will take the best and most used features from both pieces of software and combine them into one, thus improving performance and adoption across the board. Backup & Sync users functionality and users will be automatically transitioned to the new Drive for Desktop when its ready. When that time comes, Google will provide organizations with a three months heads up so that they can make preparations for the transition. If you want to see the full break down on which features will be taken from both and placed into the unified sync client, you should check out the list.

Workspace EssentialsBusiness StarterBusiness StandardBusiness PlusEnterprise EssentialsEnterprise StandardEnterprise PlusG Suite BasicG Suite for BusinessG Suite for EducationEnterprise for EducationNonprofits customers who currently have users with the Backup and Sync deployed

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Google Drive is unifying its two backup and sync solutions to reduce confusion - Chrome Unboxed