Google has just made Google Drive official. As expected, the service will offer 5GB of storage space for documents, videos, photos, PDFs and other files, and Google Docs is built-in to the service. Users will be able to upgrade to 25GB of space for $2.49 a month, 100GB for $4.99 a month, or 1TB for $49.99 a month, and upgrading to a paid account will expand your Gmail storage to 25GB.
Google Docs functionality within Google Drive will allow users to work with others in real-time (as you can currently do in Google Docs), and includes the ability to share content with others, add and reply to comments, and receive notifications for new comments on documents or files. Google says you can also search everything in Drive by keyword, or filter by file type, owner, and other criteria. The service can also recognize text in scanned documents.
Google says Drive is "built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience," which means that users can attach photos to Drive to posts in Google+, and will soon be able to attach files from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Google also says that Drive is an open platform, and that it is working with third-party developers to allow users to "send faxes, edit videos, and create website mockups directly from Drive." Overall it's sounding a lot like Dropbox with its initial feature set, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Google Drive is available now for PC, Mac, and Android, and will come soon to the iPhone and iPad.
Check out our head-to-head comparison of Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive, SugarSync, and more!
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