Announced back in March, Google Drive File Stream will soon be available to all G Suite customers. It’s essentially OneDrive placeholders (or Files on Demand) for Drive.

“Drive File Stream is a new desktop application that allows you to quickly access all of your Google Drive files on demand, directly from your computer, meaning you use almost none of your hard drive space and spend less time waiting for files to sync,” the G Suite Updates website explains. “Drive File Stream will be turned ON for all customers, but we’ll only show download links in the Drive interface if you currently show them for Backup and Sync / Google Drive for Mac/PC.”

Because Google has to make G Suite as complex as any Microsoft business solution, the rollout of Drive File Stream is needlessly convoluted: G Suite admins will see settings for the feature appear in the Admin console starting today. But these settings won’t actually work until Tuesday, September 26th, when Drive File Stream becomes generally available to users.

Drive File Stream will replace the old Google Drive client for PC and Mac, Google says, and that older app will no longer be supported starting December 11. It will be shut down completely on March 12, 2018. But users who don’t want to use Drive File Stream can alternatively run the new Backup and Sync client for PC or Mac, the firm notes.

Why two backup and sync clients? Because, again, Google has to make everything as complex as Microsoft does. How else will it ever be adopted by the enterprise?

This Google help site will help you understand the differences between Drive File Stream and the more consumer-focused Backup and Sync.

Tagged with G Suite, Google, Google Drive