All You Need to Know About Google Drive: Google’s Venture in Cloud Service

Google introduces its new venture in crowded cloud service segment called Google Drive. In a race to win more consumers Google has finally decided to put its foot on the last gear and unveiled Google Drive service to the public. In a nutshell, Google Drive is yet another wannabe Dropbox with additional support from the search behemoth. Few years back, people had to buy additional HD to fulfill their ever growing space requirement, but Dropbox and few similar services changed the whole scenario.

Users can realize the potential of the cloud service by merely looking at the number of big giants who jumped onto the cloud service bandwagon. Needless to say that sooner or later users of this services will be exploited in the way that will help the company. Smartphone gerent Apple has already jumped into this field last year when they announce iCloud service. It makes file syncing and sharing across multiple device a breeze. The dream of sharing multiple files across different gadgets and devices without need of a hardware has been realized with such cloud sharing service.

Google Drive Terms of Service

As usual, ambiguous Terms of Service by Google regarding the content shared or stored in Google Drive has attracted a huge debate among tech savvy people. While Dropbox and Microsoft remains transparent about the copyrights of the material you uploaded to their cloud server, Google has mentioned a contentious TOS. There is also a huge question on how spammers or crackers can exploit this service to host illegal stuff (including software, files, ebooks, music, scripts and more).

Keeping all critic aside, Google Drive will help  users in many ways. Search engine giant has already mentioned their intention to support wide range of devices including PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android device (no mention of Windows Phone, BB and other third tier smartphone). Initially, users will get 5GB of free space which can be upgraded by paying a small amount ($2.49/month for 25GB upgrade). It will consequently expand the space of your Gmail account as well which is an added bonus for those it matters.

Features of Google Drive

To inveigle Dropbox users, Google has announced some pretty dandy features. With multi billion dollars in its pocket Google can easily outsmart Dropbox and SkyDrive for that matter.

• Google docs is built right into Google Drive
• Work with others in real time
• Upload/ manage PDF and other documents and share it with others
• Add reply or comments on files
• Support for almost all possible platform including PC, Mac, iOS and Android devices
• Search file by type, owner and more
• Upload PDF, videos, photos and virtually anything

Collaboration and sharing features will be extremely useful to the people who are used to work in collaborative office environment. Apart from all the basic features, Google is also working on advanced features, in conjunction with third-party developers, to enable send faxes, edit videos, create website mockups etc. Then there is a abundance of Chrome store apps that will let you enjoy more features which have not been mentioned by Google yet.

Google Drive even works in offline mode. The hassle free offline mode will let users manage documents, shuffle folders and edit non-Google docs without need of Internet connection. This is especially helpful in case of power/Internet outage and long plane rides. Similar to SkyDrive, it will let you create documents online and share it to your friends with web document. In case of documents users can manage and edit them provided they have given a right permission to do that.

Install Google Drive

As mentioned earlier, Google Drive is available for PC, Mac and Android. Support for iOS smartphone will arrive soon. Just head over to http://drive.google.com and download the appropriate version. Follow all the instructions and you’re good to roar.

Storage Plan and Price

Following are the storage plans made available with Google Drive

Plan	Price
Free	–
25 GB	$2.99/ Month
100 GB	$4.99/ Month
200 GB	$9.99/ Month
400 GB	$19.99/ Month
1 TB	$49.99/ Month
2 TB	$99.99/ Month
4 TB	$199.99/ Month
8 TB	$399.99/ Month
16 TB	$799.99/ Month

 

When you upgrade to the premium plan, you will automatically credited 25GB of Gmail storage as a bonus. In short, Google Drive service will ensure you that you stick to Google services. If you’re eager to know Chrome web store for drive apps then you can head over to this link