Since launching Drive last year, Google has offered users 5GB of free Dropbox-style storage for documents and their Picasa / Google+ photos — but Gmail has long had its own, separate 10GB of storage. Now, Google is unifying storage across its products, something that should automatically make Drive a lot more useful to many users. All Google users now get a combined 15GB of shared storage across Drive, Google+ photos, and Gmail that can be used as they wish. If you're a light Gmail user, you can devote some (or all) of that 15GB to Drive — immediately making it one of the larger free cloud storage options out there.
Unfortunately, Google has also done away with one of its storage tiers — previously, users could add 25GB of storage to Drive for $2.49 per month. That option is now gone; the cheapest extended storage option is adding 100GB to your Google account for $4.99 per month. That's half the price of Dropbox's 100GB plan, and some recent improvements to Drive have made it even better as a Dropbox replacement than ever. As for those with the $2.49 25GB plan, a Google spokeperson confirmed that users will be able to keep it until they cancel or change their plan — but new users will have to jump in at the 100GB tier. As with so many of Google's changes, these new Drive plans will start rolling out to users "over the next couple of weeks."
Comments
Google Apps users now have 30GB across all 3, too.
By lgladdy on 05.13.13 1:19pm
Where do you find this? My $50 a year business account only shows 5Gb.
By James.M on 05.13.13 1:35pm
As per unclebobbing’s link: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/bringing-it-all-together-for-google.html
My free account is now showing 31gb on the Google Storage page, but isn’t yet showing it as shared across Gmail like the screenshots, and Gmail still shows I have 10.1gb of space. I guess this stuff will take a bit longer to connect together.
By lgladdy on 05.13.13 1:38pm
They’ve giving you 31GB with a free Google Apps account? Or were you paying for storage before?
I added the 25GB plan to my Google Apps account when I read they were discontinuing it. But if they’re giving 30+ for free, there’s obviously no need…
By dcarr622 on 05.13.13 3:47pm
Mine still says 5 GB both in gmail and my free google/a
By 3825 on 05.25.13 10:40am
Yep
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/bringing-it-all-together-for-google.html
By UncleBobbings on 05.13.13 1:35pm
What about Google+ instant upload? That had unlimited space for your photos and videos.
By intelcookies on 05.13.13 2:27pm
I think if you upload above 2048px it eats into your storage allocation.
By gmurqk on 05.13.13 2:37pm
Luckily, I believe you can set it to automatically resize everything to <2048×2048 before you run out of space.
By ImSpartacus on 05.13.13 8:03pm
Excellent. My university uses google apps for email and i don’t use it (forwards to my personal gmail). Now i can just use that account for drive.
By alcohol on 05.13.13 2:45pm
A nice little pre I/O gift.
By redbullcat on 05.13.13 1:19pm
Definitely. If I hadn’t been grandfathered into the 25 GB Skydrive plan I would look into this for cloud storage.
By Bleedorang3 on 05.13.13 1:24pm
I was grandfathered into SkyDrive, but I just use both.
By silellak on 05.13.13 1:40pm
I use SkyDrive/Drive/DropBox depending on who Im working with or what Im doing. SkyDrive is my main one though since it has a lot of benefits over the others for me personally, using Office 2013/365 and Windows Phone and I currently have 45gb for free.
I use SkyDrive whenever we are working on anything that requires the features of Office during collaboration since I cant rely on Google Docs.
A lot of people like to use Drive for basic lab reports and stuff so I have my Drive for that or for doing quick collaborative stuff with people.
A lot of people already use DropBox and like to be able to share a folder they already have, so I need my DropBox for that.
ALL FOR FREE so win for us!
By YCSMD on 05.13.13 2:04pm
I think they are updating SkyDrive with more real-time collaboration options shortly if they haven’t already. Soon you won’t have to use Google Docs at all except for the people that haven’t heard of SkyDrive yet.
I was trying to find a way to use the 7GB on SkyDrive before I upgrade to Office365. I think if I was needing more online backup or just general storage for something I would look into serious space on Skydrive anyway, keep it all under the same roof at least.
DropBox is pretty good for sharing pictures I’ve found when people have shared certain albums. I wonder how that Yahoo deal is going to play out with the future of DropBox?
I think the real win is that Microsoft has been forced to respond. Credit to Google for that.
By rylesjmalone on 05.13.13 5:04pm
Its actually quite great for consumers. Also box.com has a great cloud system with nice apps for everything and lots of storage. I have 5, 50gb accounts. Offloaded all y old files there. Now my 180 gig SSD ia ready to be filled again.
By uditrana on 05.13.13 5:30pm
You have a free 45GB Dropbox? That’s nice! Mine is only 25GB. Deals ahoy!
By ImSpartacus on 05.13.13 8:05pm
Same here. I generally use SkyDrive for photos and artwork, because I like how it displays them in the web interface, and Drive for documents and anything else. Works well for me.
By Esquire0399 on 05.13.13 2:31pm
Meh, I use dropbox. I am already tied into Android and Gmail, but I avoid the new Google products when I can. I just don’t want to give them any more ways to try to force me into Google Plus.
By swayda on 05.13.13 5:33pm
If you are quick, you may still be able to get the 25 GB plan before you move over to the new tiers.
By crisss1205 on 05.13.13 1:23pm
I guess. You’re basically paying $2.50 for 10 GB when you could pay another $2.50 for another 75 GBs. But I suppose that if you don’t have anything to put in that extra space, you might as well save yourself $2.50 per month!
By Titus Thorngate on 05.13.13 1:31pm
Not exactly. You get a whole extra 25 gigs when you pay for it. The current 15 gigs is just added to it.
So 40 gigs total.
By deadpenny on 05.13.13 1:41pm
Does that mean if you buy 100gb, you actually get 115gb?
By Sir_Brizz on 05.13.13 2:02pm
Yep. I got the old 80 GB at $20/Year and the free space added to that.
By mortenlu on 05.13.13 2:08pm
I guess online storage prices should come down again in the next years?
By JohannesZ on 05.13.13 2:31pm