Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Rolls Out Online Storage Services

Posted by Zonk on from the instant-access-warez-stash dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The associated press reports that Google is slated to provide online storage at a price. From the article: 'Web search and Internet services company Google Inc. on Friday began selling expanded online storage, targeted for users with large picture, music or video file collections. The prices range from $20 per year for 6 gigabytes of online storage; $75 per year for 25 gigabytes of storage; $250 per year for 100 gigabytes of storage; and $500 per year for 250 gigabytes of storage.' Is this too expensive for what there offering, or are you going to make use of it?"

22 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, it's too expensive by heinousjay · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, that about does it for comments here.

    --
    Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    1. Re:Yes, it's too expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Its to late. Their already lots of comments. I assume there here to ad there inciteful comments. Don't loose your cool if they contain lots of grammer errors.

    2. Re:Yes, it's too expensive by eclectic4 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Holy bejeesus, I can't believe you got modded up for that completely misleading comment. It's not $99 just for storage, it's also email, one-click publishing of web pages and photo pages. Groups. Automatic calander, bookmark, address book, email and some third party syncing. Easy Mac and PC (and Web) access to upload and download from anywhere, video tutorials, backup application, etc... the list is very long.

      Check it out.

      I use it every day and love it. I have found no better coupling than iLife and .Mac. It just works.

      --

      "The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
    3. Re:Yes, it's too expensive by kestasjk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Holy bejeesus, I can't believe you got modded up for that completely misleading comment. It's not $99 just for storage, it's also email storage, one-click storage of web pages and photo pages. Groups. Automatic calander storage, bookmark storage, address book storage, email storage (didn't you already mention this?) and some third party data storage. Easy Mac and PC (and Web) access to upload and download from anywhere (Eee.. storage?), video tutorials(Google's web apps also come with these), backup application(a storage interface?), etc... the list (of file types you can store) is very long.

      Check it out.

      I use it every day and love it. I have found no better coupling than iLife and .Mac. It just works. The stuff you mentioned is basically just.. storage. You also mention calendars, web hosting, and e-mail. Google does all that too, of course. Except it does that part for free.

      Last I checked Google just works, and I expect this will just work too, and it looks like it'll just work for less money.
      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
  2. Old new: It's called gmail by Bomarc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    See: http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

  3. Is that all they're offering? by eln · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So I read the article, and all it says is that the stuff you store can be used with Google products like Picasa, Gmail, Google Docs, etc. But, can't anything I store on my own hard drive be uploaded to those apps too?

    I can get 500 GB of local storage for $100, and I don't have to worry about what some corporation is going to do with my data. If the only "advantage" to Google's storage is that I can use it with their products, what's the point? Surely Google must have something more to offer than the article states. As it stands, this looks like a great deal if it were 1998, but not so much today.

    1. Re:Is that all they're offering? by nuzak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > I can get 500 GB of local storage for $100

      Yes, and I can get a pair of shoes or a blowjob for that too. What's that got to do with online storage, which presumably you put online for a reason?

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
    2. Re:Is that all they're offering? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      >>> Yes, and I can get a pair of shoes or a blowjob for that too.

      Which store does that combo? I'm heading there as soon as I find out!

    3. Re:Is that all they're offering? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Read more carefully. They don't offer it as a combo, it's either/or ... either the shoes or the blowjob.

      If you're looking for a combo then $100 will get you a pair of sandals and a reacharound.

    4. Re:Is that all they're offering? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, $500 for a Hummer (even the tiny H3) would be a pretty good deal!! Like printers, they'll get you on the refill costs.
      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  4. Well, by martinelli · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've always had an issue with online storage. Sure, you have a massive capacity. But, think about the time it takes you to upload, download, etc. For the $500 a year pricetag on the 250gb drive, I could go out and purchase a few 250gb external drives. Although online storage is great for protecting against a physical disaster, it's simply too clumsy right now to be used effectively.

  5. Amazon S3 by Usquebaugh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use Amazon S3 through Gorilla Disk. I also use it directly through Python and Ruby.

    Amazon has it right in this instance. The cost is less and is dynamic.

    I'm looking at starting a small app hosting company and S3 will definitely work better than Google, my costs grow with my business, no upfront expenses etc.

    1. Re:Amazon S3 by crt · · Score: 5, Informative
      I think you mean Jungle Disk, which allows you to connect to Amazon S3 from your desktop, as well as do automatic backup.

      At $0.15/gb/month, S3 is already priced better than Google - especially considering you only pay for what you use with no need to pre-pay for a bunch of storage in advance.

      S3 is really a different service - you can store anything on it, whereas the Google storage can apparently only be used from Google apps (for now). The other advantage of using software like Jungle Disk with S3 is that your data is encrypted before even leaving your machine, and neither Amazon nor anyone else can access it.

    2. Re:Amazon S3 by yelvington · · Score: 4, Informative

      S3Fox:
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/324 7
      Integrates an upload/download interface for Amazon S3 into Firefox. Very slick and very free.

  6. Re:So this was their plan all along by glop · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can already pay with PicasaWeb. That allows you to have more that 1GB. The 1GB option will likely stay free as a way to attract customers.

  7. Expensive and unreliable? by FlyByPC · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For one, it's expensive; you could buy many times the storage by buying the hardware yourself; it would be cheaper to go with RAID-1 and replace the drives every year whether they needed it or not.

    Also, even assuming that Google's new service is:
    • trustworthy (I.E. they don't peek at your data),
    • reliable,
    • secure (hackerproof and disasterproof; aren't they based in CA?), and
    • speedy (and it ain't ever gonna be as fast as a locally-attached HD)

    ...there's still the question of your own Internet connection; I for one don't want to lose access to my files every time my cable connection decides it needs a day off. It's been pretty reliable lately, but still.

    On the "trustworthy" issue, I trust Google as much as just about any company -- but I don't trust anyone 100%, so why risk it?

    Bottom line -- call me a dinosaur (OK, it fits; I enjoy BASIC and Assembler), but I'd rather do it myself.

    Yeah, yeah, you say -- but what about portable storage? OK, I admit, this would be convenient -- but I still think the drawbacks (even money being no object) far outweigh bringing the data you need with you. Heck, for that money, you could seriously think about one of those new solid-state drives! How's that for reliability?
    --
    Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
  8. there by N7DR · · Score: 5, Funny
    Is this too expensive for what there offering

    Sigh.

    Here we go again, wielding the language of Shakespeare with all the delicate sensitivity and purpose of a surgeon wielding a cosh.

    1. Re:there by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

      Fine. Editors, please correct this typo. It should read: "Is this to expensive for what their offering."

      --
      This guy's the limit!
  9. Re:I won't be making use of it by eln · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're right. Just like a game manufacturer wouldn't dream of trying to make extra money by slapping advertisements all over a game I already paid $60 for, Google would never try to make extra cash data mining storage that they are already being paid for.

  10. Official post and links by FleaPlus · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Forbes article didn't link to it, so here's the official announcement from Google:

    http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/simple-way- to-get-more-storage.html

    Also, here's the link for actually purchasing the additional space:

    https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage

    At the time being, this doesn't seem to be a standalone storage service (the summary was kind of ambiguous about this), but rather a way to upgrade the space you have on additional Google services (gmail, Picasa, etc.). In any case, I'd really love it if they eventually came out with a storage service that you could use as a CVS/SVN repository.

  11. Forbes blew it -- Not an online storage service by SEE · · Score: 5, Informative

    All this is is an opportunity to buy extra space for GMail/Picassa/etc. beyond what you already get on their servers for free. It is not an online storage service like Xdrive, but an equivalent to buying Hotmail Plus.

  12. To provide actual data... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Informative

    Currently, I get a little over 250 GB from Dreamhost and I'm paying $120 a year for it. I've been a Dreamhost customer for a couple years, so I'm not sure how much a new customer gets (Dreamhost increases the storage each week), but I'm sure it's less expensive than Google's rates. I have 199 GB uploaded at the moment, which is a near-100% backup of my DVD collection (in 1-gig-per-movie MP4 format.) Dreamhost supports mounting storage as WebDAV, FTP, or rsync to transfer files. (And of course there's web hosting included.)

    The problem with large amounts of storage isn't the amount of space, but the time taken to upload. It took a week to upload my movie files to Dreamhost on a medium-speed DSL connection, and it would take several solid days of downloading to get it back.

    --
    Comment of the year