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While it isn't happening by default yet, it looks like Google is planning on automatically upgrading users of the Drive and Photos syncing apps to the new unified app. It's clearly the new version of the Drive app (just version 3.x instead of 2.x), and running the installer will do an in-place upgrade of the prior app. On the first launch, a dialog box explains a bit about the transition.

The new app has all the features of the Drive and Photos apps, and it links to both sites in the menu. But there's one major new feature that takes the app out of the Dropbox mold it was originally cast in: you can now back up any folder to Google Drive, instead of just the single "cloud folder." A UI lets you open a folder dialog box, where you can cloud-enable any folder, anywhere on your computer.

This seems to basically be a backup system. On the Drive Web app, you'll see all your computers listed, and rather than moving the new folder into the Drive directory, backed up folders from each computer live under the computer names. These are computer-specific files and don't get synced down to other devices. It's strictly a backup system.

Having Google Photos exist as part of Drive is still a bit of a clunky feature. I don't need hundreds of gigabytes of historical photos downloaded to all my computers by default. Fortunately, you can still pick and choose which folders you want to sync, allowing you to uncheck the "Google Photos" folder.

Backup and Sync will eventually hit your computer if you have the Drive or Photos sync apps installed, but you can manually download it here.