Rclone or gdrive stream download which one is better and why?
for gdrive stream i will simply copy file to local disk
You will obviously get somewhat biased answers here, and I haven't even tried it personally.
But one thing I can say for certain (because it's a common complaint I've heard) is that rclone is infinitely more configurable to your needs. Google drive stream is really not meant to be user configurable beyond the basics.
I mean here are it's settings. It's pretty sad... rclone has almost more settings for the Google Drive API specifically than drive stream has for the entire software system.
https://support.google.com/a/answer/7644837?hl=en
Rclone can talk to pretty much anything. Drive stream is for drive - period. And only if you have a Gsuite to boot.
Rclone is an ecosystem. Caching, encryption, remote control, webUI. Can can choose the modules you need and configure them in detail. Drivestream is whatever the setup is and the handful of settings you are allowed to tweak.
Encryption... I mean... It's worth mentioning twice. Call me paranoid, but I'd never upload my data to the cloud unencrypted. It's very unlikely google actively spies on people in the sense that they scrounge through your data, but they certainly do run hash-scans.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone thought Drivestream was actually better on some front - except for it being very easy to install
I will preface by saying that I adore rclone and think that ncw and team should be nominated for the Nobel Science and Peace prizes. Love it.
That said, there are a few things that GDFS does nicely:
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It takes roughly 7 seconds to install and configure. And the learning curve is less than a minute. That can be a major plus for many users who are not technically inclined. Think "People who use Apple devices".
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My Drive and ALL Shared Drives are instantly mounted. No additional configuration is needed. Folder and file information begins populating in the background.
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You can easily cache any files and folders locally with a simple right click and have persistent, instant access. These files of course sync to the cloud.
In addition, these features are maybe not better than rclone, but nonetheless are pretty handy:
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It integrates nicely with the UI on Win10 and MacOS. Looks just like any other drive (same as OneDrive).
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For the most part it just works. You can open/edit/close files locally, they sync instantly (-ish) with gdrive in the cloud. If you shut the machine down mid-sync it resumes on restart. It is fairly robust.
For light and medium use GDFS is really not bad at all. It works well with Excel, Powerpoint, Word etc (same as OneDrive) across machines. It also works pretty well with Plex and Emby if your library is not too big. I've found the Windows version a little more robust with Plex/Emby, but both are pretty good with current GDFS releases.
I use rclone as my primary interface for online services. As stigma said, it is amazing how much you can tweak/configure it. And once set up it is rock solid. But I have GDFS running on most machines as well and use it often.
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I used to love GDSF but I discovered that it is restricted streaming files to only 10GB, which mean if your file is over 10GiB, you have to download it completely to watch ie. movie files. Easily hit API limit when my team drive has a lot of files, no control over cache, it is not automatically cleaning temp folder, you have to delete it by yourself. No control over bandwidth limit, which sometimes it uses all of your bw, and sometime it just stalls for some unknow reasons forever, you have to uninstall/reinstall to make it work again, no debug console. etc. When I found out about rclone, I have never looked back since.
I use GDSF on Windows and use rclone on Linux.
And sometimes,I use skicka on Linux and RaiDrive on Windows.
But GDFS has a foolish function that it would show folder "My Drive" as the system language and have no any setting to change it. Some Program can not use file path include non-English letter. So I can not run some Program in GDFS.
And rclone has a big problem too. I can't run program in disk that rclone mounted(on Windows). I don't know how to solve it.
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I didn't know that... Not sure how to fix it but it is probably possible ...
I
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I think I have seen this too. I've rarely had a reason to try it but it would be nice to have for various small tools and the like.
Let me know if you want any testing or data-collection on windows Nick.
Just tested putting "spacesniffer" on the drive and running it. The windows error is "windows can not access the specified device, path or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item".
ie. it may be related to permissions and thus maybe something that needs to be handled in the WinFSP layer - sort of similar to how you have to set a permissions-mask in FUSE. I'm not sure if windows has any "executable" bit like Linux has though. I don't really think so? ... but maybe something equivalent.
Actually this has an easy solution which works on both Windows and linux - use --file-perms 0777
That makes files executable and you can run them!
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Cool! Will definitely try that.
Would never have guessed since that's a very Linux-like setting that I would think did not work on Windows.
Is there any particular reason why not to make this standard by the way? Is there any downside? Potential security liability?
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--file-perms 0777works, i was able to execute wiztree on a mount.
wiztree is a small portable app, just one .exe and no .dll and other support files.
and it ran without delay and at full speed. -
i also was able to run filezilla, which has a bunch of .dll files.
there was a delay on startup but once loaded it seems to run just fine.
But can it run Crysis? .... 
(worked very well for me too on a simple program like spacesniffer).
i have just tested the greatest game of all time, Zork,and that runs just fine.
i think i will stick with rclone. i don't need much work only download files. i guess rclone has multi-thread download which gdrive stream don't have.
On linux marking every file as executable shows up in the listings and looks odd. That isn't visible in windows though!
It was a suprise to me too! I figured it out by grepping the cgofuse/WinFSP source code looking for stuff on executables
Worth adding to mount docs you think?
If so I will make an effort to add it.
I know have been sloppy on finishing up some stuff I already promised in that regard - but it isn't forgotten. I've just had a very rough time the last two weeks.
Probably yes!
No worries and keep on keeping on!
I once tried combining GDFS with rClone. Below you will find the issues encountered. Some were fixable, some not
The biggest issue that should apply to GDFS even without rClone is the way it deals with long filenames
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