Google is about to charge for extra online storage space

Google has launched GDrive, a paid storage service, wherein for $20 a year, users can buy 6GB of additional hard drive space in case their existing Gmail or Picasa web album space fills up.


Picasa Web Albums Software QA engineer lead Ryan Aquino made this announcement in a post on the Official Google Blog Thursday. Aquino posted the news just hours after Microsoft announced an updated version of its storage service Windows Skydrive, formerly called as Windows Live Folders.

Google has been adding about 145MB of free storage to each email account annually. At this rate, storage limits would reach 3.25GB in three years. Yahoo, AOL and Rediff currently offer unlimited storage space on their respective e-mail services and Google's decision to charge users additional storage is believed to be a significant shift in its policies.


"As someone who tests Google products daily, I know that the simplest solution is often the one that works best. In the case of online storage, whether it's a picture, a video or an email, you should just, well, be able to store it without having to worry about whether you've got enough space in each particular product," said Aquino.
Google which started its primary e-mail service Gmail in 2004 began with 1GB capacity, presently offers users 2.82GB of free storage with their account. Picasa users get 1GB of storage.

Google has set the cap at 250GB of space for a premium of $500 and plans to make the extra storage count against its other services that include Docs and Spreadsheets. It must be noted however, that most users don't even come close to reaching the free storage limits.

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