Google Drive launch to store your digital content on its servers

Google Drive, the online cloud storage service, is at last upon us. Going head to head with competitors Dropbox and Microsoft's Skydrive, Google Drive will offer all users 5GB of free storage.

Google Drive aims to be a place where you can dump all your files, documents, photos, video and other digital content. It can be installed on a PC and a Mac, and an Android app is already available with the iPhone app coming soon. So how does this compare with other online storage companies? Microsoft's Skydrive recently offered 25GB before dropping it back to its existing free space of 7GB. Google Drive does better all of its competitors on pricing although Skydrive does not offer a monthly subscription service, only an annual fee which works out lower than Google Drive. Skydrive charge just $10 per year for hosting 20GB of your data where Google Drive will ask for $2.49 per month and offer you 25GB. The amount of storage space Google have on offer is vast. One of the services they offer is for those wishing to store extensive bulk file amounts - a staggering 16TB (terabytes) for a monthly fee of $800. This is a huge amount of data but one that can comfortably hold 40,000 high resolution full-length movies. Other competitors Dropbox and Sugarsync have been the cloud storage of choice for many up to this point but Dropbox offers just 2GB of free service before charging $10 per month for up to 50GB. SugarSync offers its users a free 5GB of space but wants $5 a month for using up to 30GB; twice as costly as Google Drive. By keeping files in Google Drive, users will be able to call up all the files and other information on their smartphones, tablets, laptops and any other internet-connected device, reports The Independent. Google Drive may take several weeks before it becomes available to users all over the world. To check to see if Google Drive is available in your country click here.