Google Launches ‘Drive’ Online Storage Service; Offers 5GB to Free Users

Online storage services are a dime a dozen, so whenever a company finally decides to toss its hat into the ring, it’s usually hard to get excited about. Of course, things change a bit when that company is Google. After all, millions are already heavily invested in the company’s many other services, so the addition of online storage makes sense. And let’s be honest, are there any other companies you’d have as much confidence with to keep your data safe and secure?

The service is called Google Drive, and the aim is to allow you to store any and all of your files online, while also being able to collaborate with others in real-time and even search across anything you have stored there (scanned documents will be searchable thanks to Google’s OCR techniques). For the launch, Google has released desktop applications for Mac and PC and a mobile app for Android (an iOS app is in the works).

Free Google Drive users will be treated to 5GB of storage space, while those willing to shell over $2.49 per month will have that boosted to 25GB. For bigger storage needs, Google offers 100GB for $4.99 per month, and 1TB for $49.99 per month. Overall, the paid plans offered here are extremely competitive, as Google one-ups service leader Dropbox, but the free offering is lagging – Dropbox offers 18GB while Google offers just 5GB.

There are a couple of other perks worth noting, however. With a paid account, Google will automatically increase your Gmail storage to 25GB, and regardless of whether or not you go paid, Google is upping everyone’s Gmail storage to 10GB to help celebrate the launch of Drive. It’s a win/win all-around.

If you give Google Drive a try, be sure to leave your thoughts on it in our comment thread.