My Google Drive Wish List

This week the Wall Street Journal reported that Google is close to releasing what was previously referred to as G-Drive. For those of you that have never heard of this, it is Google's version of Dropbox, an online repository for your files that synchronizes files to the cloud.  I decided to come up with a wish list of what I hope the service will be.

I think for Google Drive (the suspected new name of the service) to be a success, one of the key features is going to be the amount of free storage they are going to offer. Dropbox gives new users 2GB for free. SugarSync, another competing service and iCloud both offer 5GB for new users and I believe Google will need to up that amount to at least 10GB or more. 10GB of online storage should be enough for most people's needs.  I have a ton of music that I now have stored in the cloud on Google Music for free.  That leaves me with the data files.  I have my 5.5GB of photos and files in Google Docs and Picasa.  If I can keep all of my old files dating back to the late 90's plus pictures in fewer than 6GB then 10GB will be a good starting point.

Pricing for additional storage will be the next key component. 10GB should more than enough for the casual user of the service but heavy users will look to upgrade their allowed storage.  Google's current pricing for Google Docs and Picasa is ridiculously cheap in comparison to other services. For $5 a year I was given 20GB of storage to use between the services.  For $20 a year I could have 80GB of storage or jump up to 200GB for $50 a year. They have higher plans but I think most power users will find the pricing and amount of storage offered to be very reasonable. With Dropbox the next level up is 50GB for $9.95 a month.  SugarSync jumps to $49.99 a year or $4.99 a month for 30GB.  Both are a steep increase over free in comparison to Google's current pricing.

To compete head to head with Dropbox, Google will need to create a similar drive mapping feature on the desktop that you get with the Dropbox client.  I want to have a G: drive mapped on my PC that is the uplink to the cloud storage.  It will need to stay in sync with little to no effort on my part.  Google has done a good job of this in the past, but I am just concerned that if they miss this step that it will greatly hinder the service's usefulness.

On the Android devices, the integration to Android is going to be the key.  Like how Google+ uploads pictures automatically (if  you allow it), I want to be able to have my documents, music and pictures all to be uploaded to the Google Drive without having to manually start it. Having the ability to specify uploads over wifi only or being able to throttle uploads across cell networks of course is a must. But imagine all of your data files on your phone or tablet being uploaded to the cloud so that when you get to your desktop the files would be there. Sharing your data between a computer, phone, tablet or any web enabled device without any effort is what will keep people using it.  That is what cloud storage is really designed for.  The client needs to be an integral part of the OS once it is installed.

Support for other platforms will be necessary to compete with iCloud and SkyDrive. Until Android tablets take off iPad support will be critical, at least in the mainstream media's view.   But why not compete with Apple on their own devices? Also, as Windows 8 comes out this year it would be great to have a cloud solution ready to install on the new computers and tablets from day one.  Google needs to be everywhere they can be.  With a client on an Apple or Microsoft computer syncing up to the cloud and allowing you to get to those files on your mobile devices, this would let users migrate to the cloud without feeling like they are making a major change from what they are doing today.

What type of things would you like to see in the Google Drive service? Sound off below in the comments section.