There is no doubt that cloud storage is the future. Increasingly, it is becoming more feasible to save the bulk of your data online via cloud storage so that you can access it anywhere without much hassle. In a relatively belated move, Google has joined the arena of cloud storage to compete with others such as Dropbox and SkyDrive (Microsoft). The company released its product yesterday (local time) and it is integrated directly into Google Documents.

Space

Google has upgraded the Google Drive space for everyone to 5GB (Dropbox only offers 2GB for free). Equally noteworthy, Google will allow up to 16TB of storage, while SkyDrive only offers a maximum of 50GB.

Sync

You can download Google Drive onto your PC and smartphone. If, you already have the Google Docs App for Android or iOS, it will notice that you will get an option to update the app to Google Drive (iOS update is still a few weeks away).

Once you have downloaded the app to your PC you can sync different folders from Google Docs or you could add folders from your hard drive into your Google Drive folder, which then proceeds to sync automatically. You will be able to upload 30 different file types including HD video, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

Share

Google Drive retains all the key sharing features of Google Docs so you will still be able to invite people to view and edit documents without a problem, it is just that now you will have access to much wider variety of items. In addition, you will be able to share the files via Google + and Gmail.

Apps

Google Drive now makes full use of apps integrated directly into Google Drive. For example, you can click on “create”>”more”> and then choose a particular app to work with directly from Google Drive.

Conclusion

I am a big fan of Dropbox but with Google Drive integration with Google Docs, there is now a more appealing option. The additional free-space and app integration, further enhances the appeal of the concept.