Google Drive; Google’s Cloud Storage Service Launching This Week

Google Drive is expected to launch this week. — Google Inc is preparing to roll out a service to let consumers store photos and other content online. The move would pit the Internet search giant against other players such as Dropbox and Box. UPDATE! Google Drive has launched just as we had predicted and here is a quick tutorial on How to Check Google Drive Available Space.

Google’s “cloud storage” offering will incorporate search capabilities and allow users to store pictures, notes and other documents on the Internet and access them from any Web-connected device.

Google Drive would offer consumers 5 gigabytes of storage for FREE, reports said, adding that it will charge for higher storage. However, other online backup providers will likely be somewhat protected by this relatively low storage provided in the free mode.

Most people can’t back up their photo and music collections to a 5GB (the rumored size) or even 10GB location, so they will likely be able to maintain the business selling online storage.

Dropbox seems like the real target of this product — their incredibly rapid and viral growth must have been a real shock to the folks at Google, who (it’s rumored) had scuttled a “Gdrive” idea previously. With more than 45 million users (as of Nov 2011), Dropbox has a strong start. The question will be how they, and other providers like Box.net respond to Google’s entry.

The Google Drive service would let consumers store their personal information, from digital music to photos, on remote Internet servers and access the data any time with any device, such as smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.

At this point, it was not immediately clear how much Google will charge for the premium versions. A Google spokeswoman said the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.

Google is increasingly developing services to let consumers store their personal information, from digital music to photos, on remote Internet servers and access the data any time with any device, such as smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.

Google Drive will work with sophisticated image search technology to let consumers sift through a wide variety of document types, which could include the likes of Adobe PDF files and photographs, the source said.

How do you see it playing out? Is Google only going after Dropbox? Or should Box.net, Mozy, Carbonite and Backupify be worried about Google Drive?