Cheap Storage, No Waiting

At least we might be a little closer to finding out the answer to the questions Michael Swaine asked last year when he pondered what the heck was Google up to in the little town of The Dalles, Oregon. In his article Web Developer Survival Tips, Michael was scratching his head over what Google's plans were in building the world's largest server farm.

Well, we're now finding out that commercially available online storage may be part of the plan. For the time being, Google claims its new service is being provided for users who have large picture, music or video file collections. Prices range from $20/year for 6 GBs, $75/year for 25 GBs, $250/year for 100 GBs, and $500/year for 250 GBs of storage. The storage service spans several Google products, including its Picasa photo site, Gmail email service, and Google Docs and Spreadsheets office applications. Gmail users currently get 4 GBs and Picasa users 1 GB of free online storage. Not a bad deal at all, but it does make you wonder "what's next?"

If you're interested in more storage, you can sign up for Google's service here.

-- Jonathan Erickson

Posted by Jon Erickson at 02:03 PM  Permalink