Google Ups Online Storage Ante With Fee-Based Options
Just hours after Microsoft pushed its new SkyDrive online storage option out the door, Google announced its own new storage options. There have long been rumors that Google would eventually offer some sort of “GDrive” for online backups of data, and while this may not be what many people had in mind, it’s certainly a step in that direction.
The big catch for many people will be that the new storage options aren’t free. In fact they aren’t exactly a bargain either. here’s a price breakdown:
- 6 GB: $20 per year
- 25 GB: $75 per year
- 100 GB: $250 per year
- 250 GB: $500.00 per year
The average price hovers around $2-$3 per gig per year, which is about $1 more per gigabyte than purchasing an external drive and over a $1 more per gigabyte than Amazon’s S3 service. Amazon’s S3 service offers storage at about $0.35 per per gigabyte a month (technically it’s $0.15 a month for storage with a $0.20 per GB for data transfer, and that additional data transfer fee can add up if you make your documents public).
But Google’s new storage options are really aimed at a different market — namely users with overflowing Picasa or GMail accounts. Picasa already offered additional storage through fee-based premium accounts, but those will be replaced with these new integrated storage plans.
Google’s announcement also promises that the expanded storage options will be available for other services — like Docs and Spreadsheets — “soon.”
Google’s new storage options may not be the fabled GDrive you’ve been waiting for, but if you’re a GMail or Picasa user with an overflowing account at least you’ve now got some options.
