After many years of speculation, Google finally announces its alternative to Dropbox,Microsoft SkyDrive and other numerous cloud storage services. Google Drive starts out by giving users free 5GB storage space, which is way higher than the starting storage for Dropbox at 2GB. Google Drive makes a special folder on your system, and any file put into the folder will automatically be synced to all your Google Drive connected devices.
The initial launch is currently available for Windows,Macs and Android devices. Did Google forget Linux? That’s wouldn’t be cool. Google mentioned its team of engineers are working hard on an iOS version of Google Drive.
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Features
- Create and Collaborate: Google wasted no time in integrating Google Docs into Google Drive. Integration with Google Docs makes it possible for you to collaborate in real-time with others in creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations (Wedding planners here you go).
- Access your document anywhere you go – with the connectivity across the numerous supported devices, any document on your Google Drive account can be accessed whenever you want. With just a browser, you most important document is just within reach.
- Integrated Search: Google Drive provides you with search functionality whether by File Type, Keywords, owner and many more.
Each user gets 5GB of free storage, compared to Dropbox’s 2GB, SkyDrive’s 7GB, and iCloud’s 5GB. An upgrade to 25GB is $2.49 per month, 100GB is $4.99 per month, and a full terabyte is available for $49.99 a month. The options actually go all the way to 16TB for $799.99 a month. Any paid account also upgrades Gmail storage to 25GB.
With the features listed so far, G-Drive sounds like an interesting services especially for individuals and businesses using Google services. Its still too early to start jumping ship at this point in time. I currently own a 9GB Dropbox account for free and currently using 75% of my storage space. However, time will tell if truely G-Drive will be a true alternative to Dropbox and the likes. In the mean time, we are watching.
Do you know Google Drive is expected to support Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The OCR capability means you can search for text in scanned documents.
