Watch out Dropbox, Amazon Cloud and Microsoft SkyDrive! Google introduced today its free, 5GB cloud storage service, Google Drive. Available to anyone with the Google account, Google Drive enables users to upload, share, collaborate on files stored in their Google Drive account.
If you’re familiar with Dropbox, you’ll be right at home with Google Drive. In addition to accessing the service from within your Google Docs account, you can also download the PC and Mac Google Drive client that launches as a folder on your computer. All files, including videos, photos, PDFs, and Google Docs, dropped into the Drive folder get synchronized to your account. You can also opt to not sync selected folders to one or more of your computers.
Google Drive is also available for Android devices, with iPhone and iPad support to follow soon. If you’re Google Chrome user, you will also able to access your Google Drive account when you’re not connected to the Internet.
Google Drive can essentially replace the Documents folder on your computer, because whatever changes you make to a file stored in the Drive gets automatically updated, and it can be accessed from any other computer logged into your account.
Google starts you off with 5GB of free storage, but according to the Official Gmail Blog, “everyone’s free storage will be increased from 7.5 GB to 10 GB (and counting) to celebrate today’s launch of Google Drive. The increase will take effect over the next 24 hours“. For more storage, you can upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/per month, or event 1TB for $49.99/month.