Google Drive Officially Announced with 5GB of Free Storage

The long rumored cloud storage service from Google has finally landed as Google Drive. As expected it offers 5GB of free storage to users. Google Drive marks the entry of Google into cloud storage service, which has established players like Dropbox, Box, Sugarsync and SkyDrive.

Google Drive will be well integrated with other Google products like Google Docs and Gmail and it allows users to upload and access files including videos, photos, Google Docs PDFs and more. It is tightly integrated with Google Docs allowing you to collaborate on documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

As you expect from Google, Drive has powerful search inside for searching files, with OCR technology it can search the scanned documents.

Google Drive gives a free storage space of 5GB with paid plans for those wanting more space starting from 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month and upto 16TB for $799.99 (Google Drive pricing plans). If you upgrade to a paid plan your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB.

Currently Google Drive is available for Windows, Mac and Android. Apps for iPhone and iPad are in development and will be released soon according to Google.

Start with your Google Drive here.

What you can do with Google Drive:

• Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
• Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.
• Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.