By Well, that didn’t take long. After a slip-up by a Google-owned French blog we figured it wouldn’t be long before Google Drive was officially officially announced. Google just made the formal announcement, and they’ve already made the service available to all. It’s like Dropbox and pretty much most decent file hosting services out there, but Google sought out to emphasize exhaustive search features.
You can search via keywords, and Google will scan titles and text within a document. Even if you have an image that has text in it, Google Drive can find it. It’s called Optical Character Recognition and should make searching through your documents a breeze. You can sort by file name, owner, and more. Another huge feature is collaboration. You can work with others on documents in real-time.
It’s sort of a natural extension of Google Documents. They take things a step further with the ability to comment on a document in case you need to note changes to your partners. You’ll start out with 5GB for free, but you can get 25GB for $2.49 per month and 100GB for just $5 per month. 1TB of data will run you a cool $50 per month.
And, once you get 25GB or higher, your Gmail account will also have space for 25GB worth of email. You’ll want to grab Google Drive ASAP, so get started at their site and be sure to find the accompanying apps for desktop operating systems and Android. [Google Play Store]
Downloaded it, i love the interface
Did you download a desktop interface? I am only getting a message the Drive isn’t ready yet and that they’ll notify me. I did get the updated app on my phone and tablet, though.
yea i have the desktop interface as well as the Android, i posted pics from Phone/tablet/Laptop
you in the US or not? I’m in the UK and it says it isn’t ready yet…
What a great Google day! Drive and the GSM Nexus officially available. Grabbed both to celebrate. :)
I hope I’m not going to be the only one to put my Google Drive inside my Dropbox
Drive is much faster at uploading files then drop box i just uploaded a 6 min video into my drive in less then 1 min, it would have taken 4 times as long to do it on drop box.
Dropbox automatically throttles your upload speeds – you can turn that off in the settings, and it’s just as fast as Drive
Not even close to being like Dropbox. Two completely different services. Will be sticking with Dropbox. Can use Truecrypt with DB and DB can also restore previous versions of files.
I love how you get a notification status of the video/photos/documents being uploaded and the speed.
why do they have a Natwest Logo?
http://www.natwest.com
It ain’t the same (only the triangle shape)…
natwest recycled it too :)
https://www.google.nl/search?q=recylcle&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=nl&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=aOGWT8fYGaKf0QXdssynDg&biw=1920&bih=965&sei=auGWT7rIMKeP0AXQiIiVDg
HAHA!
I have the 80 GB / $20 year storage plan for Picasa. I now have all of this space on Google Drive. It is MUCH cheaper than what Google is offering right now. I hope I can keep it!
What do you think?
Ofcourse you can keep it you paid for it, i got 25GB because i bought 20GB a month ago :)
I should have said, I hope I hope I renew this plan next year. :-P
You can… just don’t let it expire first. As long as it stays active, it says that you will keep your current rate plan.
Yep! http://bit.ly/JF2Jbw
I love Google.
Was this already hidden somewhere in ICS? Cuz when I went to the market, Drive was already in “my apps” and it only gave me the option to “update”.
Looks like they piggy backed it onto Google Docs.
It’s replacing Google Docs, so when you update, it wipes off the Docs and Replaces it with the Drive.
I sometimes still get the google docs logo when i upload a file into Drive lol
Is it me or is everyone getting sick of the same ole music themed advertisements. Can these agencies seriously come up with some other ideas? Wheres the creativity in that. Other than that, i guess i’m signing up :)
hmmm, new pricing structure is more expensive than what i’m paying ($5 a year for 20GB) and when I look at the pricing plans it shows me as currently having the plan I signed up for, but it says that my plan is no longer offered…Wonder if I will be grandfathered in or will have to sign up for the new, more expensive plan.
I was wondering the same thing, so I did some digging. Here is what I found on the Google Drive web page:
How to keep your old plan
Google storage plans have changed, but you can stay on your current plan as long as you:
Keep your account active
Keep payment information in Google Wallet accurate and up-to-date
Don’t cancel or upgrade your current plan
If your account lapses, your credit card is declined, or you choose to change your storage plan in any way (upgrade or downgrade), you’ll be switched to the new Google storage plan.
Great info! Thanks much for the digging. Cheers!
Mind throwing a link to that info?
http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=39567
Yeah, these new monthly plans are pretty expensive compare to old yearly
I hope to be grandfathered in as well. That would be nice. I dont have access yet in my account so I can’t verify.
Update: I see you can be grandfathered in. Nice!
Is this US only right now? When I tried to sign in to GDrive, it asked if Iwantedto be notified “when your Google Drive is ready”. (I’m in Canada).
That’s what we get in the US too… no worries (yet)
im already signed up and ready i also posted screen pics of the desktop/tablet/phone client in a post earlier.
Yeah, but people in the US are getting the same message that “Your Google Drive is not yet ready”
its probably not regional its just random ? i had it the moment it went live
Why in the video there is an iPhone, but not an Android?
what video are you watching LOL ? that yellow phone in the video looks more like a Nexus then an iPhone, iPhones have huge bezels that phone almost looks bezeless with a huge screen
I tried the website and it comes back that my drive is not ready yet, and I can click to be notified. I checked my phone, and sure enough, already updated with Drive. I click it and start the set up to be told, again, my drive is not ready yet. Now I’m waiting for an email to be able to try it out.
How do I enable Drive for Google Apps, Free??? My Dashboard shows Drive and Docs enabled but when I go to drive.google.com, it says that Drive is not enabled for my domain.
5 million downloads just like that.
I’d assume this includes all the people who had Docs installed (it’s the same apk).
I don’t have access to it yet. Drive home page have a “notify me” button.
I’m going to stick my neck out and predict that Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin don’t have their doors smashed in by a SWAT team without a valid warrant whenever something copyrighted is uploaded. I’ll also predict that the servers won’t get seized and destroyed, including the destruction of all legitimate content. It’s one rule for them and one for us (and MegaUpload).
There’s a difference between this and megaupload.
Kinda funny that there was a rumor of it having a large 100gb max cap but apparently that was not large enough for google as they have a much larger 1tb cap instead.
According the to purchase storage page you can buy up to 16TB, but I think it was like $800 a month.
Pricing structure (prices are monthly)
25 GB – $2.49
100 GB – $4.99
200 GB – $9.99
400 GB – $19.99
1 TB – $49.99
2 TB – $99.99
4 TB – $199.99
8 TB – $399.99
16 TB – $799.99
what about desktop folder sync? like dropbox.
To get the desktop client click on the “get started at their site link” in the article.
Im in Wales/UK & not available for me, is this ONCE AGAIN a American only Google product, & only for the rest of the world Months & Months away??? Hope not.
In England works fine.
I think I might stay on Drop box. I use dropsync pro to keep things in my drop box in sync on my phone and tablet without having to manually having to start drop box and fetch the files. It also means having access to documents when a data connection isn’t available. It allows me to select what folders to keep in sync, so I can lea,ve music files in the cloud but have document kept in sync with my desktop on all devices. Until drive has this option or one by a third party is developed, I think I’m sticking with DropBox.
Same here, they will notify me when my drive is ready. But hell, i’m in S. Korea lol…