Google is dramatically cutting its prices for cloud storage on Google Drive, undercutting every major competitor on the market. Whether those competitors are drawn into a price war with the technology giant and its billions of dollars in cash remains to be seen.
Prices on Google Drive are now just $ 2 a month for 100 GB, down from $ 5 per month. The price at Dropbox, currently the most popular cloud storage provider, for 100 GB is $ 10 monthly. Other Google Drive price cuts are just as impressive. A 1 TB plan is now $ 10 monthly, compared with the previous $ 50. A 100 TB+ plan begins at just $ 100 monthly, likely enough cloud storage for many businesses.
The price cuts are so massive that they have made Drive storage a cheaper alternative to Google’s own Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) storage option.
‘Infrastructure Improvements’
The cuts were possible, according to Scott Johnston, Google’s director of product management, because of a series of “infrastructure improvements.”
“We’re able to make it more affordable for you to keep everything safe and easy to reach on any device, from anywhere,” Johnston wrote on Google’s official blog.
It is also plausible Google is making price cuts like these just for the sake of gaining new users, whereas a smaller company would not be able afford to do so.
Cloud storage has become one of the easiest ways to keep data safe in case of a hard drive failure or other physical malfunction. Since many people rely on multiple mobile devices, cloud storage is also beneficial as it allows access to files from anywhere. The industry surrounding cloud storage has continued to grow and become more competitive.
Hard To Beat
Google Drive was already a competitive cloud storage provider. Competitors like Dropbox, MEGA, Box, Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) and Apple’s iCloud have generally been relatively close in price, however. Now it may not be so easy, at least for smaller providers.
Dropbox’s pricing, for example, starts at 2 GB of storage free, and then upgrading to its Pro service provides 100 GB for $ 10 per month. When compared with the $ 2 price tag now attached to Google Drive, Dropbox is no longer as appealing as it once was.
A Lot of Space
Even for many businesses, 100 TB would be enough storage space to keep records safe for years to come. Since the majority of cloud storage growth has been from usage by consumers, the Google Drive price cuts are even more impressive.
Now that 1 TB is available for just $ 10 and is also one of the most popular storage sizes for individuals, Google clarified how much space that really is.
“How big is a terabyte anyway? Well, that’s enough storage for you to take a selfie twice a day for the next 200 years and still have room left over for…shall we say…less important things,” Johnston said on the Google blog.
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