Google Drive

With Google's legendary customer service, it's only a matter of time until someone gets their account locked, loses all their files and can't get them from Google because there's no way to speak an actual person.

Is it just me or is this landing page pretty terribly designed (other than the video)?<p>If I didn't already know what the product is, I would have no idea what I'm looking at. Is it a cyberlocker? Is it a Dropbox clone? Is it a social file editor?<p>Heck, the landing page could almost just be describing the previous Google Docs functionality.<p>The most innovative features, OCR and image recognition, are buried away with almost no description of just how useful they might be (privacy issues aside). The file revisions feature is sorely lacking in detail.<p>Also, the amount of white space feels excessive. Was a second page for features even necessary or couldn't that have just all been on the main page?<p>I'm sure the product is great and all, but this page is completely useless to send to less technical friends or family members.<p><i>Edit: If you want to compare it to Google's other downloadable software landing pages:</i><p><a href="http://google.com/chrome" rel="nofollow">http://google.com/chrome</a><p><a href="http://google.com/earth" rel="nofollow">http://google.com/earth</a><p><a href="http://google.com/toolbar" rel="nofollow">http://google.com/toolbar</a><p><a href="http://google.com/quicksearchbox" rel="nofollow">http://google.com/quicksearchbox</a><p><a href="http://picasa.google.com" rel="nofollow">http://picasa.google.com</a><p><a href="http://sketchup.google.com" rel="nofollow">http://sketchup.google.com</a>

I'm curious to know how many people like this trend of having to watch a video when you get to a landing page. Its showing up in more and more places, and I personally dislike it (I don't want to load a video and watch a clip, if I can quickly scan text and images and figure out if I should continue), but I wanted to know what other people thought.

The best thing about this is that it will <i>finally</i> force Dropbox to offer <i>more</i> storage at a <i>cheaper</i> price point. $200 bucks for 100GB of personal storage per year? I've long thought it's ridiculously high for mass adoption and so many more would be using it if the price was a bit more reasonable.<p>For me:<p>1. I need much more space than 100GB - I'd ideally like a TB+ on the cloud.<p>2. The price has to be more acceptable. Say the cost of a TB hard drive on an annual basis. I'm not even going to talk about the likely $1000+ bill for a TB of space at the current price point.<p>3. I have to admit that Dropbox is pretty cool when it comes to a smooth, painless experience.

A key differentiator here vs. Dropbox that I think people are overlooking is the fact that you can actually edit your files and collaborate easily. The transition to cloud-based apps is underway, and Dropbox -- in this respect -- is about to be stuck in the past.

The Google Docs integration is disappointing. Just JSON files that open up Google Docs in your browser, nothing useful to point Time Machine or some sort of backup script at.

Google &#38; Apple make outstanding marketing videos. They are routinely some of the best I see in any industry, and the clear leaders in the tech industry.<p>The only "startup" I have seen that rivals their quality of marketing videos is Square. Does anyone know how much producing video like this costs?

The biggest things here are the OCR, image recognition and (hence deeper) search feature for your files. It would be really tough for Dropbox or any other competitor to match these. The Google drive also seems to be available on all platforms so looks like a very good option.

So now they have your social network, your search history, your email ... and now your files? I can't see how that could possibly go wrong.

Anyone see any word on a Linux client? "PC and Mac" is all I can find, but "PC" usually translates to "Windows"...

Has anybody tried syncing extisting folders via symlinks? Using Dropbox this is how I prefer to keep track of folders outside of the actually Dropbox folder. Google Drive just seems to ignore them.<p>Not being able to include other folders would pretty much be a deal-breaker for me :( Any ideas?

<p><pre><code> You need to upgrade your Adobe Flash Player to watch this video. Download it from Adobe. </code></pre> It makes me wonder how serious is Google about WebM.

Talk about cheap storage. :)<p>20 GB ($5.00 USD per year) 80 GB ($20.00 USD per year) 200 GB ($50.00 USD per year) 400 GB ($100.00 USD per year) 1 TB ($256.00 USD per year)

It must be crazy in the plex today. My Gmail is down, can't download canary, and this site is crazy slow to load.

I like it. Well, I can't use it currently (my drive "isn't ready yet") but I've wanted a more feature-ful Dropbox[1]. With Google killing off tons of projects I love (latest being Picasa for linux, sad face) it's nice to see they're adding cool things in the meantime.<p>[1] That is, Dropbox's philosophy is to create something dead simple that an idiot can use, whereas I suspect Google's product will be laden with options and knobs. I don't knock on Dropbox - I'm constantly recommending it to people that aren't tech-savvy (and it's one of the few things they understand and start using quickly), but I personally like those knobs and levers. Am I the only one here that doesn't think they're direct competition with each other? They're in the same space and all but I think they're meant for different niches.

The icon looks a bit like a recycling symbol. This is not a good metaphor for cloud storage.<p>And no linux client.

Apparently Google Drive isn't <i>everywhere</i> I want to be; it's not "ready for my account" yet. Is it really that hard for Google to make this available for everyone who wants it right away? How many people are trying to do this on opening day?

"Your Google Drive is not ready yet" :(

No Linux support? sad face.

Anybody an idea whether it can hurt to put my Dropbox folder in the GDrive folder? That way I'd have a double backup for files in my Dropbox folder.

I wonder what this will mean for dropbox. I certainly like the micro-like pricing starting at 2.50 a month.<p>As a statisfied dropbox user, with only ~200mb used, I don't need to pay for the service. Yet I recently wanted to show my support by taking their lowest possible plan. (I thought this would put me back 15-30 dollars a year).<p>Yet the lowest thing they offer is 9.99 a month. I found that suprising

2MB file size limit???

When running the Google Drive OSX application the CPU goes into overdrive while syncing my local files to the Google servers and pushes the CPU temperature to around 100° Celsius. Is anyone else experiencing the same issues?

I tried it quickly. And couple things I have grip with. 1. I Synced my folders and a couple files showed up. I deleted the files I didn't want in my google drive on the computer, and they were removed from google drive.<p>2. I disconnected, And when I tried to sync back up it wanted my Google drive folder to be empty. It wanted to re-sync everything from the online Drive account. It wouldn't pick up where it left off.<p>I stopped using it right away.<p>That was my experience. I'm sure they will fix it. Unless I'm using it wrong.

I wish I could select on android which folder I wanted Synced. Right now I had to manually share the photo folder from my gallery. (I dont want to use google+ photos)

It seems along with this announcement google have revised their storage pricing. On the old scheme I could get 20GB for $5/year, now 25GB is ~$30/year (600% increase) -<p><a href="http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38;answer=39567&#38;p=butter_old_storage" rel="nofollow">http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38;answ...</a>

It's funny that in the old Google Docs I was able to upload documents with no issues in any browser/OS, but it seems that in Drive I cannot do it using Opera on Linux (but I can using Chrome). Also, the way in which shared documents have been handled in the transition is just plain stupid.

The next big stage of cloud storage is integration. Integration into 3rd party apps. Integration deep into devices (iCloud for iOS and Google Drive for Android). This was a "must" for Google for Android to remain relevant.

The more I use it, the more I see it as a Dropbox clone. Not just the exact same feature-wise, but also technology-wise..<p>Google Drive's Mac client is written in Python, just like Dropbox's, for example.

It's strange that the top comments here are blasting Google for things we couldn't care less about.<p>I think it's awesome. Especially the search integration and ability to build apps. Dropbox is dead.

How is Google Drive different from the way Google Docs is meant to be used? Seems like Google Drive is Google Docs with a new name and an intro video.

I still want to be able to sync any folder - not just a gDrive or a dropbox folder.

It seems to be disabled for google apps?

microsoft, canonical, apple and now google; won't any one of the bigger tech players buy dropbox instead of developing something new?

Confusing. It says upgrade to 25GB for less than $2.50/month then it says 20GB for $5.00/year. You would think with Google's budget they would have some person read the front page and the pricing page.

at first i was like, only 5gb free, what happened to massive leapfrogs goog. then i was like 100gb for 4.99/month F yeah america.

Why is Google immune to Anti-competition laws?