[Update March 2017: Since this post was first published in 2012, much has changed in the cloud storage market. The prices and the specifications in this post are now out of date. Microsoft’s cloud storage system isn’t even called SkyDrive any more. However, I have left these old figures here as an indication of how quickly technology can change.]
Google has released Google Drive, a cloud storage product to rival DropBox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive.
The service offers 5GB of free storage which can be increased to 100GB for $4.99 per month, or 1 TB for $49.99 per month. Unlike some services, there is no discount for buying more storage. The 5GB is less than Microsoft offers, but Google Drive does not have the 50MB limit that Microsoft have. Considering that an Iomega 1 TB external hard drive costs less than $120, and a 2 TB model can be bought for less than four months of Google Drive, I can’t see this price model continuing.
Like DropBox, Google Drive offers a program or mobile phone applet to integrate with your operating system. Google will also use its search, facial recognition, and optical character recognition on uploaded files. You could, for example, upload a piece of scanned text as an image and then search for words within it.
Source: BBC News article
Questions
- Describe two advantages and two concerns for an organisation that stores its files using a cloud storage systems. [8 marks]
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