Yesterday, Microsoft finally launched Files On-Demand for Insiders on the Fast ring, ending over two long years of waiting for a return of Windows 8.1"s placeholders functionality. Unfortunately, if you"re not an Insider, it"s still going to be a few months before you see it, as Files On-Demand won"t show up until the Fall Creators Update in September.
In January, Dropbox launched something similar called Smart Sync. But while the company said that it would come to consumers at some point, there hasn"t been any announcement since it was launched for businesses.
It appears that Box is the cloud storage provider that will make the functionality available to everyone first, as the firm announced Box Drive today, and it does exactly what you"d expect it to do.
Box promises that with Box Drive, you can access "ALL of your content – even tens of millions of files" while taking up very little space on your hard drive. The company says that it will stream the files, so it isn"t even necessarily downloading them as you use them.
Box Drive is available for Windows, macOS, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, but most importantly, it"s rolling out to all Box users beginning today.