Normally, I am not a person to do product reviews, but enough buzz was being generated and enough people have been asking about how we are looking at it, that I decided it was time to lock myself away for a few days and play with the new Google Drive...
To be fair, it was also an excuse to geek out and avoid thinking about a "long range plan for technology" which in my world is the equivalent of tossing a 20-sided die into a cup full of tea leaves and hoping that the result looks plausible.
The Google Drive:
What is it?
How does it compare?
Why use it?
What it is:
The Google Drive is the long-rumored (it was in secret beta a few years ago and caused quite a bit of excitement) cloud-based storage provided by Google. For the last few months, we have known that it would be similar to other cloud based systems -- a certain amount of storage for free, additional storage available for more money. We assumed (correctly) that it would have some way to easily move any type of file from a traditional desktop to the cloud and back. We assumed (also correct) that it would be linked to Google Docs, the cloud based productivity software (word processing, spreadsheets, etc).
The details are these: it is 5 GB of free space that can be tied to you gmail account. If you are an Apps-for-Education partner, your administrator has to flip a switch (for now) to allow the service to activate, although this should become part of the regular service as the drive is phased in.
 |
| Gdocs meets Gdrive |
It is a replacement for Google Docs, in that all of your "Docs" are now stored in the Drive which looks very similar. There is more of a traditional drive feel to it with folders at the top (when sorted by Title), and the traditional "Create" and "Upload" buttons to the left, along with a folder tree, some quicksorts and the "DOWNLOAD GOOGLE DRIVE" Button.
The Google Drive download puts a file folder on your Mac or PC that allows you to treat your G-Drive in the same way that you do with traditional file folders. It becomes a quick way to save in the file system and docs that you click on from the traditional folder open in native applications or their Gdoc-in-the-browser window. Syncing happens in the background and is relatively seamless. (note: if you are a Google Cloud Connect user, documents that are synced using THAT product are ignored by G-Drive syncing. I actually uninstalled the cloud connect so that G-Drive could take over completely). There is also an app for Android (it is the replacement of the Gdocs app if you have it installed already and one is in the works for iOS, giving you syncing in all the ways you would need except one (more later).
(comparisons and google apps after the break)
