# Any Opinions on Google Drive (now 15 GB free)? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 14, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288 "2013-05-14T02:56:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/1 "2013-05-14T02:56:48Z")
It was just announced: “Today, the company announced that you’ll now have 15GB of free storage to share between Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos.” > **[Google Unifies Its Free And Paid Storage Options, Gives You 15GB To Share...](https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/13/google-unifies-its-free-storage-now-gives-you-15gb-for-drive-gmail-and-google-photos/)** > > Up until now, you've had to track your free storage on Google products separately. It was just another thing that Google hadn't brought together to make it easier on users. Today, the company announced that you'll now have 15GB of free storage to... So any opinions on how well Google Drive works? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/2 "2013-05-14T03:02:56Z")
Not very well if you want to use it for backup, probably OK if you want to share a few files or something.15 GB is a tiny amount of space nowadays. My NAS is a terabyte and I have a secondary 500 GB hard drive on my main computer. Even my iPod has 80 GBs of music. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/3 "2013-05-14T06:58:10Z")
I have a Google Drive account, but I quit using it because I liked Dropbox better. However, Dropbox only gives about 3 GB free storage, which is just barely big enough for my needs. I have a work laptop, work iPad, and two home computers, so Dropbox really makes it easy to access work-related files on any of these devices. I also have a Google Sites website for my classroom, and the storage limit was becoming somewhat prohibitive there. I’ll have to check and see if this affects the storage available for Sites as well. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/4 "2013-05-14T09:24:52Z")
Ok from a usage standpoint: The Windows program that synchronises your files is ok. The good thing is you can sync only some folders, so in your Google Drive you can have a Home folder and an Office folder for different computers. One thing it has that Dropbox doesn’t is its own document editing software. This works better for collaboration. Otherwise you’ll have to depend on Office’s (or other software’s) collaboration management. You can set privacy for individual files, you can share files with different permissions (read only, edit etc.). You can share with a “secret link” so people don’t need an account to view. The biggest problem I have is, people you share with can’t download entire folders at once. They have to download the individual files. This is rather troublesome. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/5 "2013-05-14T14:27:04Z")
I use it constantly, as I’m always on the road. But I was only at 13% of the 5 gigs. I’ll use it a LOT more when I have Google Fiber, but that comes with a terabyte of Drive storage anyway. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/6 "2013-05-14T14:50:28Z")
I pay $5 a month for 100GB of storage, which is where I backup all of my photos and music. For bulk storage, Google Drive is cheaper than DropBox, but DropBox client is nicer, so I keep a small number of commonly-used files on DropBox instead. Google Drive’s primary focus is the integration with Google Apps/Google Drive Script. Lately I’ve been screwing around with some of the scripting and it’s very nice and will let you do things like send email to a list of addresses in a spreadsheet, or set up a light web service. Basically, DropBox is best if you have a small amount of data and just want to sync between computers with DropBox’s servers being mostly just a means to make that happen. Google Drive is more focused on using your files while they’re online so you can do useful things with your files even if they are not local on any computer. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/7 "2013-05-14T14:54:35Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > I pay $5 a month for 100GB of storage, which is where I backup all of my photos and music. Can I ask what storage site you use? I need to get a buttload of photos off my old desktop PC and backed up before it goes to the skip. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/8 "2013-05-14T15:14:58Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Can I ask what storage site you use? I need to get a buttload of photos off my old desktop PC and backed up before it goes to the skip. Google drive. I thought it was implied by the thread topic. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/9 "2013-05-14T19:19:08Z")
I like it, I have 20 or so files on there. Google Drive is very handy for non-essential non-secure storage, like to-do lists or documents. Works on various platforms and it is easy to share documents with others, view-only or you can give editing rights too. Just be sure to back your “drive” up from time to time, it’s probably just a matter of time before their cloud blows away. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/10 "2013-05-15T00:00:03Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > Google drive. I thought it was implied by the thread topic. 🙂 Er okay, rereading your post, yes. I didn’t know Google Drive did paid storage too. Insert headsmack smiley here. ---
**Author:** ![sevenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@sevenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sevenwood)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/11 "2013-05-15T00:16:26Z")
My family uses it as a way to transfer images and videos back and forth to each other. (For example, my daughter will upload a video of our grand-daughter and then both sets of grandparents will then access / download it.) Works just fine for that purpose. Beyond that, I can’t say. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-opinions-on-google-drive-now-15-gb-free/658288/12 "2013-05-15T00:49:55Z")
I like it fine and am happy the storage went up. I stream all my music and movies, so the only important stuff on my computer that I would cry about if it crashed is my photos. Works great for those and I was at 80%, so the expansion is perfect timing. My phone and home computer both send photos to Drive and I throw documents over there occasionally just in case I need them. I sure hope the cloud doesn’t blow away any time soon! Since I’m an AT&T customer, I’ve thought about using their Locker, too, just in case.