by CHRISTINE ABRAHAM Staff Writer
Google Drive is a new online storage service for personal documents, photos, and other media that lets users store files on its servers, sync them to other PCs or Macs, open them on Android devices, and very shortly, iPhones and iPads. This online storage service automatically saves old versions of files. Users can access and download files from Google Drive on the web if a mistake has been made. The service deletes previous versions only when they are up to 30 days old. Google has major competition not just with cloud companies, but with companies such as Box, Dropbox, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. The pricing for Google Drive is very aggressive; for $30 a year, users receive 25GB, plus 25GB of Gmail storage. Amazon and Microsoft charge much less for 20GB. Dropbox, Apple, and Box are much more expensive. “It’s a little pricy, but if it’s works good, it’s worth buying,” said freshman Jacqueline Hur. Google has an impressive 10GB limit on files and folders when uploading, more than 2GB limit imposed by most cloud services. Since Android devices have a Google Drive app, iOS users are waiting for the application. The only companies that offer official or unofficial solutions for mobile platforms are Dropbox, Box, and SkyDrive. “That’s so awesome that I can access Google Drive from myAandroid. That’s so convenient,” said freshman Deanna Fisher. In desktop integration, Google’s desktop app works fine, but it is not as put together as Dropbox due to the fact that Dropbox automatically syncs and shares files from their foreign file systems without dealing with desktop uploads. Recently, however, Google has gotten even more competition since Dropbox upgraded its photo uploader. Dropbox made it incredibly easier to upload photos from any camera, smartphone, tablet or desktop computer. Google Drive should essentially be used by people who do most of their work or spend the most time on Google.
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