Google Drive used to be just storage before Google took its online office suite, Google Docs, and pasted them together into Google One. If you’re a little confused because Google Workplace is also available, you’re in good company.
To clarify, Google Workspace Individual is meant for small business owners, while Google One is a consumer subscription plan that gives you more storage across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.
A Google account alone gives you 15GB of free storage and an excellent office suite. It’s good enough that many businesses and Chromebook owners now use it as their complete cloud-based office. If you buy a Chromebook and are a new Google One customer, you’ll get 100GB of free cloud storage for a year. With both kinds of free storage, it’s shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.
Google Drive comes with clients for most operating systems, except Linux. Google promised long ago that there would be a Linux client, but it’s yet to arrive. There is, however, an excellent third-party Linux commercial client, Insync.
Need more storage? No problem. Under the name Google One, Google Drive storage offers 100GB for $2 per month or $20 per year, or 200GB for $3 per month or $30 per year. For 2TB, you pay $10 per month or $100 annually. You can share your storage with up to five other people using any of these plans.
You can also use the Google One app on both Android and iOS devices to automatically back up your smartphones. This includes your device data, multimedia messages, as well as photos and videos in their original quality.
One of Google Drive’s best features is its integration with Google Search. So, for example, if you’ve lost track of a file but remember a couple of words in it, it’s easy to find. I use this feature almost every day.
Google Drive features: Free storage: Google Drive starts its offers with 15GB for free | Variety of storage plans including individual & business | Secure sharing | Multi-platform | AI tools
