Google’s latest service, the Google Drive is on cloud nine, and leaves a
trail of angry portable memory storage device makers. Well before we get to that on how they achieve this success lets first come to terms with what Google Drive really is. It is a file storage/sync service which goes by the latest trend of cloud computing and has incorporated Google Docs into it. Judging by the past experiences of Google even a lame man can speculate that the service will be free. Well , its mostly right, but we will come to that later.

So lets talk in detail about this service. Google Drive as the name suggests is a free service wherein people can store and synchronize their data, just like they do in their hard disks. This type of storage (which I like to call as Cloud copy) is similar to the service provided to smartphone users by ‘Dropbox’. It has also incorporated Google Docs – a service provided by Google as a substitute for Office suites – into Google Drive making it a end-to-end package which serves the purpose of Office Suite and memory storage device to any professional or casual user. The software gives a lot more stable, reliable and most of all – cost effective solution for a particular user who travels or uses office suites a lot. Trust me, most of my blogs and articles are written and saved in Google Drive, so I know what I am talking about. It also offers real time editing, auto saving (saves after every action so you can continue precisely where you left off) and multiple user sharing and editing at one time.

Apart from this one can also download an store the data to a computer’s local hard disk so that he may have a soft-copy of the data. However that’s seldom required as almost all kinds of work done by an office suite can be done in Google Drive. Another feature in this service is Google Drawings, a suite which allows you to create, edit and share images. The Drive allows you to store about 5 GB of data for free, for 25GB you need to pay a monthly rental of 2.49 USD, and for 100 GB you need 4.99 USD per month. Files up to 10GB can be uploaded at once if they are not in Google Docs format. There is also an Android app for this service which makes the whole package even more portable and appealing.

If one wants to synchronize some of his files in Google Drive then the ‘client’ software provided by Google must me first downloaded and installed. Third party apps also can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store. These applications, can be used for other purposes like fax, flowcharts, signing, etc. with Google Chrome.

The privacy policy is a user friendly one wherein one owns the intellectual rights of the content, and can reproduce, and create derivative works from the stored content. However Google reserves the right to edit the content if it is used for promoting or advertising in Google . It also allows trans-coding of the document so that it can be viewed in mobile or other browsers.

All in all Google Drive is a fantastic package for just about any computer user especially a web development company and is much recommended than its competitors since it is free of cost and more stable than others.

Go to Google Drive here.