How many of you still rely on a USB drive to transfer files from your home computer to your work computer or to share photos with a friend when you go over their house?
USB drives certainly made it easy to carry around your data when it was too large to email or when you needed to access it on a different computer. Though, there are now so many online services that utilize the cloud to sync, store and access your data from any device with a WIFI connection that USB drives are quickly becoming obsolete.
A few of the big players in this field that offer some type of cloud storage for free with an option to upgrade to larger storage amounts are:
DropBox, iCloud, Skydrive, Syncplicity, Wuala, Mozy, Box, Sugassync, Cubby, Livekive and Insync.
And today Google has stepped up to the plate and is offering their own comparable service – Google Drive. Google has been offering a bit of cloud storage, though Google Drive really improves on what they had and puts them head to head with the players mentioned above.
Google Drive can open a wide array of file types right inside of your browser and offers you drag-and-drop syncing through a desktop app that works on both Mac and PC. Google Drive comes with 5GB of storage free, with upgrade options like $2.49 a month for 25GB of extra storage and $4.99 a month for 100GB of storage. You’ll be able to create and collaborate with others in real time and easily be able to search all of your data to find what you need when you need it!
Google Drive was just announced today so we’ll have to wait a few days to see how users enjoy it and then determine which is the best way to go! The good news is that this will push innovation and we continue moving forward with inexpensive online storage and access for our data!!
Giddyup
