Sundar Pichai presenting at the Chromebook launch at Google I/O. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Online storage options came to a climax last week when Google Drive reduced prices for people wanting to store documents, photos and videos online. Most experts agree that even large storage users will find ways to avoid paying for cloud space.
Google slashed prices for its online storage plans on Thursday. Google also offers their 15 gigabyte plan for free. For Google, it's not about the money, Avram Piltch of Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag says, it's more about increasing membership to their ecosystem.
For big data companies, Google is doing exactly what Amazon did to bookstores, Arun Taneja says. They're trying to change the online world of storage. Today the majority of people only need about 5 to 10 GB of storage, but in only a few years, this could be very different.
There are tricks to setting up free storage. Have separate accounts for both personal and work email, Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester Research says. Apps such as Otixo and Jolidrive can unify and manage the data that is stored in these different accounts. Dropbox offers a number of ways to get more free space, such as referring friends or using their feature for automatic photo upload.
Tablets and computers typically come with free storage, some might only be for a very limited amount of time. For example, The Samsung Chromebook has 2 years of 100GB storage on Google Drive Storage. The Galaxy S5 has 6 months of 50GB with Box. Of course, choosing a device shouldn't rely on just these features.
Storage Wars: Google Drive drops price