Google announced a name change for Drive today. It’s now called Backup and Sync and allows access to files and folders on Drive without having to keep a local copy, i.e. it’s essentially a remote filesystem with local caching. As before they only provide clients for Windows and Mac. Does Insync have plans to support the new functionality, especially on Linux?
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Also very curious what this means for future inSync releases. I see this functionality as being very powerful, especially for developers, writers, editors, and anything that has to do with revisions and versioning.
I’m not 100% readup on these new features, but from what I’ve seen this could really push Insync to a new level. It’s already the best I’ve ever used, but better version control/remote file system integration would be AMAZING.
Thanks, and hope to see some progress soon!
Joey
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I second that request.
I’m afraid not.
The Google Drive public APIs that are necessary to implement a one-way sync/backup feature existed since a long time ago. Apparently such a feature isn’t high on Insync’s priority. I don’t think the release of Google Backup and Sync will change this.
The new Google Backup and Sync is mostly just an upgrade to the official client and the web UI. It doesn’t introduce any new APIs. The underlying workings of the Google Drive service hasn’t really changed. The “Computers” are just some top-level folders that the official client handles somewhat differently than the old “My Drive” top-level folder. All using existing APIs.
All the versioning features also existed since a long time ago.
This new official client doesn’t support network drive or non-NTFS drive on Windows, and working with backed up files that don’t have a local copy is pretty inconvenient. For example, there doesn’t seem to be a way in the client to get such files/folders to get resynced / downloaded back to local computer.
The only really good thing I find about the new official client is its ability to upload to Google Photos while keeping your folder structure. So I plan to use it as a Google Photos client only, and keep using Insync as my main Google Drive client.
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em… no. The new Backup and Sync is soooo far far away from such a fantastic thing. Not even close.
As I mentioned in my previous post, when a backed up file’s local copy is deleted, there isn’t a way to get that file back to local computer in the new official client.
Actually, the name “Backup and Sync” is pretty accurate. It can either
- Backup - upload only, never delete anything in the cloud; or
- Sync - same as the old client, except now in more locations.
— But there’s no restore!
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A future release with one-way sync will give the same functionality + the ability to “download” only (as opposed to “upload” only which Backup and Sync provides).
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I may have misread what Google was saying. However the (different) Drive File Stream offering for G Suite does seem to be the thing to look for when it’s ready: https://gsuite.google.com/campaigns/index__drive-fs-eap.html
One of the frustrations of evaluating these things is that cloud providers tend to be very circumspect as to what exactly their service does.
Good to know, thanks.
Wow, that’s a freaking cool feature.
Unfortunately, many nice things available to enterprise customers aren’t available to personal accounts, and probably won’t be in the near future.
In the mean time, I suggest everyone seeking one-way sync use gdrive, a powerful command line tool for Google Drive.
Not that intuitive, not good with two-way sync, but once you get the hang of it, it’s very useful for many niche use cases.
I would like to clarify that Google Backup and Sync is NOT a remote file system. It does allow one to specify a folder to be backed up to Google Drive, but these folders are not part of the normal Google Drive file hierarchy - they are stored in a separate space much like Team Drives are. The integration of the photos client is a nice touch, but isn’t as useful for G-Suites or Apps for Ed customers since photos don’t integrate correctly with Google Drive. (those users can vote for this function to be implemented at https://connect.googleforwork.com/ideas/4314 and https://connect.googleforwork.com/ideas/6405)
However, the unreleased enterprise sync program, called “Drive File Stream,” works by essentially mapping a network drive directly to the Google Drive storage space - fully integrated into your OS (in Windows, it literally shows up as a network drive). The application is not public yet (I’m testing in their EAP), but for the vast majority of my Google Drive needs, this is a great solution and I’m in love with not clogging up my local storage with a bunch of files. I don’t use about 90% of my files more than once a year and the extra time required to cache a file before opening is a nice alternative to requiring massive resyncs or file-comparisons every time I want to set up a new computer or workstation.
That said, I still use insync (along with freesync locally) to synchronize my array of devices and storage supporting my media server. Insync supports modular storage much better (though Google is supporting this now in a semi-cold backup oriented way), moderates overhead better (less lag while using the computer), has a nicer, faster interface, and most importantly, supports multiple accounts at the same time. Insync still has it’s place, and does a pretty good job at it. They will need to do a better job with their modular storage support in the future though - Google is catching up.
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Yes, as I’ve already said I misunderstood the Google announcement. However Drive File Stream does sound like something I’d be interested in. Fortunately I have an Enterprise (Education) account so hopefully I’ll be able to play with it before too long.
My apologies, I missed your other post. I hope mine helped to clarify some things anyway. =)
So, is it possible to use the new Backup and Sync like the old Drive client, where it keeps local copies of everything in sync across multiple computers?
When the Google Drive client goes away, will InSync continue to work as it has in the past?
I’d appreciate a plain answer to Andy_Pastuszak’s question: ‘When the Google Drive client goes away, will InSync continue to work as it has in the past?’. Or, in my use case, can I still keep using InSync on my Linux machine while using Backup and Sync on my Mac?
@Andy_Pastuszak @tedthetrumpet Insync will continue to work as is with no changes on your end.
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We’ve just opened Insync 1.4 for beta testing 
We’re testing the a new feature we’re calling Now@ which allows for syncing files on-demand with a double click.
Help us test 1.4 here.
We’d definitely like to get feedback from users who have tried Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync 
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Drive file stream had a pretty major crashing bug when working with file modifications until the unpushed update they made yesterday. Insync still offers more features though, especially for individuals who want access to team drives and multiple accounts. While DriveFS does allow changing the cache folder (via registry editing, ugh!), the whole experience is much better in Insync.
At first, I thought Google Drive file stream would replace this service for Gsuites users. Way to innovate in order to stay relevant in a changing market!
@gio I have a major question though - that perhaps should be a feature request. How do you do your garbage collection? In other words, if I use on-demand sync, does that file stay synced permanently, or does it get cleaned up after a set time of inactivity?
A cache clean-up routine would be a simple, if tedious, feature to create (just make it based on the last modified date and let the user decide if and when they want to erase) and would allow you to advertise more heavily on the space-saving virtues of Insync.