Are my Google Drive files really stored on my hard drive any more?

Question

For years I've used cloud storage as a backup of the important files on my hard drive / SSD.  I always made sure that I selected the right settings so that I had the files physically on my local drive at all times, as well as in the 'cloud'.  With or without the cloud storage software, I could always go into my physical drive and find the folder with all my files in it.  If I moved a new document into the cloud storage folder, it would be in that folder and also backed up to the cloud.
Now, with the latest iteration of Google Drive that uses a mounted drive (on my iMac) and settings that talk about 'streaming location', I'm no longer sure that this is the case.  Are all my Google Drive files physically on my local hard drive or are they in the 'cloud' and being streamed as I access them?  It's not clear.  The whole point of cloud storage, to me, is that it's a constantly up to date backup of the files in a particular folder on my local drive.  If Google is no longer doing that, then it's useless to me.  Even worse, if I move a file from another location on my local hard drive, into the Google Drive folder, has it been permanently deleted from my local drive?
Thank you to anyone who can clarify this  :-)

PeteranDi · Accepted Answer

Does this help:- https://support.google.com/drive/answer/10838124?hl=en

PeteranDi · Accepted Answer

Hello John,
The option to stream does delete the local copy of your files. If you need a local copy then the option to mirror should be used.
Mirror is a 100% copy of My Drive on the web and My Drive on the computer.
Regards,
Peter