Google Drive has been out officially for a week now and I thought I would share a video I took of me installing it on my test Windows XP machine and a few of my opinions on the service so far.
First the video. Nothing to difficult here to install it. Simply go to drive.google.com and if you are logged into Google you should be able to download it and install it. If not you will have to login. Pretty straight forward. Check out the video and you can see how easy it is to use it.
Some of my opinions on Google Drive since using it for a week. First, you need to remember that Google Drive is simple online storage, it is not a backup service! If you want backup Google Drive is not what you should be looking at. It is merely an online hard drive that you can use to store files and access them easily.
My initial impressions of Google Drive are not that great actually. Considering how l o n g Google had to create this service it is not that great. Dropbox in many ways out shines Google Drive in ease of use. SugarSync is better at mobile access of media files and SpiderOak blows it away as far as security is concerned.
What I do like about Google Drive, is the integration with Google Docs. In fact if you use Google Docs for the majority of your Word Processing, Spreadsheets etc Google Drive is perfect for you. It will make it easier to use and manage your Google Docs files.
Google Drive is pretty easy to use. Want to upload some files, simply copy them into the Google Drive folder on your computer and it will be uploaded and synced to your devices. It will also allow you to view up to 30 files types online which can be nice. There is an offline mode as well that will allow you to view your files offline but don’t plan on editing anything.
Cost wise Google Drive is pretty cheap for storage. Unfortunately they did not keep their old pricing plans which would have made it a great deal, but the new plans are not bad as well. Here are the new pricing plans:
- 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
I wish there was more that I liked about Google Drive. It really is a disappointment and does not really turn the world of online storage on its head. In fact if anything it just proved that Google really has very little clue about what it is doing with their various services. Let me explain.
Google Drive was a chance for Google to unite all of their various Google storage services under one common location. Docs, Picasa, Google+, GMail, Music and YouTube. They did not even come close. Upload a music file to Google Drive and you can’t play it in Docs, you can’t see it in Google Music. Upload images and you can view them in Docs but not in Picasa. Google proved for a fact that their departments do not talk to each other. If Drive had united all of the Google services in one convenient place it could have challenged the other online storage services. Instead it is just another location you can store your stuff, but don’t expect access to your photos in Picasa with Google Drive or streaming your music from Drive with Google Music.
Google Drive also launched with only support for PC and Macs so Linux folks are out of luck. Granted Linux users might be in the minority it is the cross platform nature of Dropbox and SpiderOak that make them so popular. Work on your Linux machine and have the same files available to you on your Windows or Mac. I heard that Google is working on a Linux client, but again after so long to develop Drive in the first place they certainly could have had the resources to create a Linux client.
Security is not really thought of with Google Drive. I would highly recommend you do not use Google Drive for anything you do not want the world to see. People just have to get your Google account password and all your files in Google Drive are accessible. Now you could encrypt your files before uploading them to Google Drive, but you will lose the ability to be able to view/edit them online. If you want secure file storage and syncing go look at SpiderOak it is really your only choice.
I am sure I will use Google Drive the same as I used Google Docs, but until they offer more innovative storage I doubt I would ever switch to Google Drive for my primary online storage. Sure the cost of storage from them is cheaper but I see no reason to change. Overall Google Drive is a pretty big disappointment for online storage. Dropbox, SugarSync and SpiderOak must have been laughing when Google Drive was released since their services are better in many ways and offer users more.
What do you think, will you be switching to Google Drive for your online storage needs?
Leave a Reply