Google earlier in the week announced changes to its cloud-storage offering that bring the 2 TB option at half price, a brand new, low-cost storage plan, 24/7 live support and other benefits.
The search company said Monday that it has restructured its paid cloud storage service, which shall be known henceforth as Google One. Don’t worry, Google Drive isn’t going away. In fact, t way you use Drive to store and share files hasn’t changed.
The free Google storage tier still comes with a generous fifteen gigabytes of cloud storage, but there’s now a new $2.99 a month option that gets you 200 GB of storage.
The 1 TB plan that used to be priced at $9.99 per month has been phased out. Taking its place is the 2 TB plan, which has gone from the previous $19.99 per month to half that at just $9.99 per month. The existing 1 TB Drive plans will be upgraded to 2 TB at no extra cost.
The new Google One storage plans are as follows:
- 15 GB: Free
- 100 GB: $1.99 per month
- 200 GB: $2.99 per month
- 2 TB: $9.99 per month
To sign on for paid storage, visit google.com/drive/pricing.
The other plans for 10, 20 or 30TB won’t see any changes and will continue to be priced at $99.99 per month, $199.99 per month and $299.99 per month, respectively.
By comparison, here are Apple’s monthly prices for iCloud storage:
- 5 GB: Free
- 50 GB: $0.99 per month
- 200 GB: $2.99 per month
- 2 TB: $9.99 per month
As you can see for yourself, Google One has a slight edge over iCloud in terms of the free tier.
And this is how signing up for the 2 TB option for one full year compares across paid cloud-storage services from Amazon, Apple, Dropbox, Google One and Microsoft (1 TB plans are used for comparison if a service lacks the 2 TB option):
- Amazon: $119 for 2 TB
- Apple: $120 for 2 TB
- Dropbox: $99 for 1 TB
- Google One: $99 for 2 TB
- Microsoft: $99 for 1 TB
Every paid Google One plan includes unlimited access to live customer service for all of Google’s consumer products and services by phone, chat or email. 24/7 customer support was previously limited to G Suite business account holders so this is a major perk.
Other extras that come with your Google One subscription include Google Play credits, discounts on hotels found through Google Search and family sharing. Yes, the Google One plans are shareable within a family of up to five members. Each person gets their own storage space within the limit of the plan and can use Google One’s live help feature.
The iCloud storage plans are also compatible with Apple’s Family Sharing feature, permitting customers to divvy up a single storage plan amongst up to five family members.
Initially, Google One will only be available on a limited basis.
The search monster has said that it will automatically convert all Google Drive users who are on one of the paid storage plans to the new Google One subscriptions over the course of next few months, starting in the United States and then expanding globally. The company will notify customers of the change by email.
Sign up at one.google.com/getupdates to be notified of Google One developments.
As a quick refresher, you can use your Google storage to store files in Google Drive, save large attachments and keep a multi-year archive in Gmail and store your photos and videos in Google Photos in their original resolution without downscaling.
What do you think about the Google One perks and pricing scheme?
Let us know by chiming in with your thoughts in the comments down below.