Almost after five years, when it was rumored that Google is secretly working on an online file storage service, the search giant has finally disclosed Google Drive. With the Drive, Google is hoping to build the world's largest digital filing cabinet.

To entice more users, Google has added numerous 3rd party Google Drive apps which can be installed from the Chrome Web Store. Users can use these free apps to edit images and videos, fax and sign documents, manage projects, and create flowcharts online. 

With Google Drive, users can easily work with others their documents including spreadsheets and presentations in real time. If users chooses to share content with others, they can easily add comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.

Let’s dig deeper to find out all about Google's new storage tool Google Drive.

Difference between Google Drive and Google Docs: 

Google’s long-anticipated file-sharing service, Google Drive has a lot in common with Google Docs and might even have the same features, It is found, drive.google.com hosts a robots.txt file which is quite similar to the one at docs.google.com, differing only by three or four lines.

Now, users will create documents using Google Doc tools, while they will show up in their Google Drive.

Purpose: 

Google Drive lets consumers store, create, share, collaborate photos and other content online. 

Access to Google Drive:

Initially, Google’s new service is available for installation on Windows-based computers, Mac computers, laptops running on Google's Chrome operating system and smartphones powered by Google's Android software. Good news for Apple users is Google is planning to launch Apple Inc's iPhone and iPad compatible version, as early as next month. 

Google Drive synchronization: 

Synchronization is quite easy with Google Drive as users can access their stuff from anywhere on the web, in their home, at the office, and from any other mobile device. If a user will make any changes to a file, document, folder, photo, video or in any data in the Drive, it will be automatically updated in the cloud and in other devices. 

Search option in Google Drive: 

Users can easily search anything in Google drive. Search criteria can be a keyword, file type or location. Moreover, Google Drive can also recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. This means, if a user uploaded a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping, with the help of Google drive, he would be able to search for a word from the text of the actual article. 

Google Drive alternatives:

As far as other alternatives are concerned, there are other rivals to Google's Drive including Apple's iCloud and Microsoft's Sky drive. Besides these biggies, there are some other free rival options like Dropbox, Box, Cubby and CX.

Cost: 

The new Google Drive is likely to be offered with both free and premium for-pay versions. 

With this new service, Google users will get 5 Gigabytes of storage for free. However, different versions with incrementally more storage capacity up to 100 Gibabytes, would also be available. It is found, Google is offering two chef rate cards; one is offering 25GB storage space with $2.49 a month and the second is 100GB of storage space for $4.99 a month. 

Availability: 

Google is displaying a message on Google drive home page, "Google Drive is coming. Want us to tell you when your Google Drive is ready? Let us know and we'll email you at ****@gmail.com (your email address) once it's ready," for those it is still not available.

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