Google's upcoming 'Google One' cloud storage plan will bring subscription perks and a...

[Polycount]

If you're an avid Google Drive user, the company has some interesting news for you. In an announcement today, Google unveiled "Google One," an upgraded version of their previous Google Drive cloud storage system.

Google One will reportedly be replacing Drive entirely for those who take advantage of Google's paid storage plans, while also providing them with an additional storage plan offering, a price tweak and a couple of notable subscription perks.

To start with, Google is slashing the price of their 2TB cloud storage plan from $19.99/month to a mere $9.99/month, and they'll be adding to their low-cost storage options with a $2.99/month 200GB storage plan.

The company's $9.99/month 1TB storage plan, which would be obsolete in light of the 2TB plan's price cut, won't be seeing any price tweaks. Rather, Google will simply be eliminating it altogether. It's unclear whether or not the company plans to roll out an alternative in the future, but the company's other storage plans -- such as their 10TB and 30TB offerings -- are largely remaining unchanged.

Google One will also include much-requested family sharing functionality (you'll be able to add up to five people to your storage plan), "one-tap" access to support experts, free Google Play credits, and deals on select hotels found through Google Search. Google plans to expand this list of perks over time.

If you're wondering when you'll be able to try out Google One for yourself, the company claims the upgrade will happen "automatically over the coming months" if you subscribe to any paid Drive storage plan; even the cheapest $1.99/month 100GB plan.

Google hopes to bring Google One to free Drive users "later this year."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/74623-google-upcoming-google-one-cloud-storage-plan-bring.html

 

[Uncle Al]

When you look at the cost of setting up your own cloud storage on a home network, it's hard to imagine the benefits of using a remote site. There are certainly advantages but I wonder just how many people have that much that needs to be backed up? Oh well, I still have a rollidex so maybe I need to convert it to the web too ..... LOL

 

[Lounds]

When you look at the cost of setting up your own cloud storage on a home network, it's hard to imagine the benefits of using a remote site. There are certainly advantages but I wonder just how many people have that much that needs to be backed up? Oh well, I still have a rollidex so maybe I need to convert it to the web too ..... LOL

Depends, electricity costs over the year could easily add up to more than $120 a year, if running a machine/NAS constantly.

 

[Andromadus]

When you look at the cost of setting up your own cloud storage on a home network, it's hard to imagine the benefits of using a remote site. There are certainly advantages but I wonder just how many people have that much that needs to be backed up? Oh well, I still have a rollidex so maybe I need to convert it to the web too ..... LOL

Depends, electricity costs over the year could easily add up to more than $120 a year, if running a machine/NAS constantly.

Computing the 9.99 * 12 months almost equals $120 per year on a local NAS. And also makes sense, considering internet costs spent during upload and download.

However, the local NAS is prone to physical damage. And security is left to your hands...

 

[Teko03]

Undercuts Microsoft, but Microsoft's OneDrive also gets you an Office 365 subscription and other advanced features like password protected shared like links, 30 day file restore and ransomware protection. Sooooo it's not really a direct comparison.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Even if I trusted google enough to store data with them, upload speed in the US is basically worthless.

A whole 5 Mbps upload would take years to saturate a 10TB cloud storage utility. Maybe if we could all get fiber (hint hint google) we could use it, but as it stands storing that kind of data online is impractical due to long transfer times.

When you look at the cost of setting up your own cloud storage on a home network, it's hard to imagine the benefits of using a remote site. There are certainly advantages but I wonder just how many people have that much that needs to be backed up? Oh well, I still have a rollidex so maybe I need to convert it to the web too ..... LOL

"cloud storage on a home network" is no more secure then having RAID'd hard drives to store things, it just has network connectivity.

The whole point of these cloud services is to keep your data safe. If your house is hit by a natural disaster/burns down/is broken into, your "home cloud" could be lost. On google cloud, that data would be "safe" from loss.

 

[mbrowne5061]

Even if I trusted google enough to store data with them, upload speed in the US is basically worthless.

A whole 5 Mbps upload would take years to saturate a 10TB cloud storage utility. Maybe if we could all get fiber (hint hint google) we could use it, but as it stands storing that kind of data online is impractical due to long transfer times.

When you look at the cost of setting up your own cloud storage on a home network, it's hard to imagine the benefits of using a remote site. There are certainly advantages but I wonder just how many people have that much that needs to be backed up? Oh well, I still have a rollidex so maybe I need to convert it to the web too ..... LOL

"cloud storage on a home network" is no more secure then having RAID'd hard drives to store things, it just has network connectivity.

The whole point of these cloud services is to keep your data safe. If your house is hit by a natural disaster/burns down/is broken into, your "home cloud" could be lost. On google cloud, that data would be "safe" from loss.

If you are using a cloud storage service (Google One, Microsot OneDrive, DropBox, etc) to keep your data backed-up, you are doing it very wrong. Microsoft OneDrive gets the closest to a cloud backup solution, with its 30-day file restore, but that still pales in comparison to an actual cloud backup service like Backblaze or CrashPlan. They also all probably lack any kind of notable encryption scheme - something where only you can read your data - the only exception I know to this is SpiderOak, but almost no one uses them for storage or backup.

 

[Someone8MyPosts]

Even if I trusted google enough to store data with them, upload speed in the US is basically worthless.

A whole 5 Mbps upload would take years to saturate a 10TB cloud storage utility. Maybe if we could all get fiber (hint hint google) we could use it, but as it stands storing that kind of data online is impractical due to long transfer times.

When you look at the cost of setting up your own cloud storage on a home network, it's hard to imagine the benefits of using a remote site. There are certainly advantages but I wonder just how many people have that much that needs to be backed up? Oh well, I still have a rollidex so maybe I need to convert it to the web too ..... LOL

"cloud storage on a home network" is no more secure then having RAID'd hard drives to store things, it just has network connectivity.

The whole point of these cloud services is to keep your data safe. If your house is hit by a natural disaster/burns down/is broken into, your "home cloud" could be lost. On google cloud, that data would be "safe" from loss.

Obviously the 10Tb plan isn't aimed at you. You don't get that plan unless you're a business or can afford it, in which case you already have the bandwidth to handle it.

 

[Someone8MyPosts]

They can't come up with anything more creative or less confusing with the competition as "One?"

 

[Kibaruk]

When you look at the cost of setting up your own cloud storage on a home network, it's hard to imagine the benefits of using a remote site.

Good luck with your disaster recovery plan.

There are certainly advantages but I wonder just how many people have that much that needs to be backed up?

Family pictures are enough to fill quite a couple GBs, with 10+ megapixel camera phones and people just taking a million pictures without erasing can quite easily fill up storage, and it's definitely something you want to keep backed as it's one of the few things you will never recover.

 

[Fuchsia2020]

Undercuts Microsoft, but Microsoft's OneDrive also gets you an Office 365 subscription and other advanced features like password protected shared like links, 30 day file restore and ransomware protection. Sooooo it's not really a direct comparison.

You are correct -- good points. Both Microsoft and Google have excellent plans now. For the cost of a sandwich you can get either the Google set of Office, and storage, or for the slightly high cost sandwich gets you the Microsoft Office / Outlook, ransomware protection. I am using a lot of Google, so I am most likely staying with that Cloud as my main, but the deal at Microsoft is tempting -- good mail service and Office, and a 1TB of space. So far, I just don't need that much space, and the little I have on Google Sheets and OneDrive Excel fits just fine. If my photos count rushed towards over 200GB some day, Microsoft is the deal. I have under 100GB these days, so Google One does look like the deal. Actually, we are talking the price of a sandwich either way, so it is a toss-up dollar wise. I use both Microsoft and Google -- both great! The points you brought up however do have some weight to them, and are worthy consideration for many people.