The cloud side of Google Drive is not changing, but two new client applications have been released. It's best to think of these as replacements for the Google Drive client app. Canvas is not dependent on these client apps, so there shouldn't be much impact from their deployment.
Google Drive File Stream (GDFS) is the enterprise client, and Backup and Sync is the consumer client. Backup and Sync behaves like the prior Google Drive client, copying every file in the cloud drive to the local computer. GDFS is a more complex caching system, which presents the cloud drive as local storage, but copies files to the local drive only on access. This is far more efficient in terms of device storage and network -- but it does assume you have a reasonable Internet pipe in place, to get good performance on file access.
We've deployed GDFS alongside Canvas in an Apple environment at our school, and have had no problems with it. This client behaves much better in general than the prior Drive client.
This discussion post is outdated and has been archived. Please use the Community question forums and official documentation for the most current and accurate information.