I’ve found that File Stream is a much better solution for me as a consumer and as a business user, so I’ve opted for it over the old tool thanks to its reliability and rapid access to my files.

Backup & Sync was built for consumers while File Stream was built for Workspace users. The term ‘unifying’ is being used because they truly are creating an all-in-one solution for those who prefer one over the other.

That’s not to say that the ability to locally store your cloud files instead of streaming them to you will go away. My take is that they’re allowing File Stream to gobble up Backup & Sync because it’s old news. Now, Google is ‘unifying’ the two solutions to ‘reduce confusion’. Google Drive File Stream is much more reliable and works by ‘streaming’ your files to you not unlike a Chromebook’s Files app does.

It constantly failed to synchronize hundreds of files and continued to get stuck retracing its steps each time I would turn my PC on.

Let’s be honest, the old Google Drive Backup & Sync option (which still exists) is not reliable.

Google drive stream m1 macbook