Google releases Google Drive

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GeoffisPure

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#101148 25-Apr-2012 05:40

http://goo.gl/o2yjt

5 Gigabytes of storage... nice! Have had a quick play and works very well.

But can someone tell me... can this thing sync your files? Can you set it up so that if you edit a file it will upload the updated version etc? From what I can see, it just creates a folder on your computer and you have to copy files you want shared into it.

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#614728 25-Apr-2012 07:08

To be honest with Microsofts' offering of SkyDrive and its intergration with explorer similar to dropbox but 25gb of storage goodness I am not all that fussed about google drive it just feels like a meh...

doesn't mean I won't use it but will probably use Microsofts skydrive over that of Google Drive I just don't like google having 2 much data on me even if they know just about everything as it is oh well end rambling.

oh funny thing is this feels very similar to Microsoft Mesh that they got rid of and now have merged back.... silly people

sidefx

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#614737 25-Apr-2012 08:23

On my desktop I just get:

"Your Google Drive is not ready yet"

On my phone I get the same message but can then access Google Docs which seems to be integrated in some way. Still, seems I am not one of the chosen.

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freitasm

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#614748 25-Apr-2012 08:29

Both Google Drive and Skydrive suffer from the same problem: no transparent way for migration from desktop to cloud.

For users who currently store things on c:\My Documents (yes, not the full path) neither Google Drive app or Skydrive app allow to sync that folder to the cloud.

You can obviously change the folder location to be the new folder used by the app, and move the files across. But that's not transparent.

Seriously, aren't these folks thinking?

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sidefx

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#614749 25-Apr-2012 08:34

freitasm: Both Google Drive and Skydrive suffer from the same problem: no transparent way for migration from desktop to cloud.

For users who currently store things on c:\My Documents (yes, not the full path) neither Google Drive app or Skydrive app allow to sync that folder to the cloud.

You can obviously change the folder location to be the new folder used by the app, and move the files across. But that's not transparent.

Seriously, aren't these folks thinking?

Completely agree... after using sugarsync (link will give you and I 500MB free storage :) ) for a bit I'm was a little disappointed with offerings from the big players. Though I must admit I would trust a cloud offering from one of the big guys more.. they just don't seem to have the features nailed yet...

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kontonnz

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#614753 25-Apr-2012 08:52

freitasm: Both Google Drive and Skydrive suffer from the same problem: no transparent way for migration from desktop to cloud.

have to absolutely agree with this, if your trying to encourage users to store data on the cloud migration tools need to be part of it.

but again in light of what happened to users data with Megaupload(ligit users) they no longer have access to their data, and this is worrying storing data on the cloud and finding it is no longer available, for whatever reason

sidefx

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#614757 25-Apr-2012 09:00

kontonnz:

but again in light of what happened to users data with Megaupload(ligit users) they no longer have access to their data, and this is worrying storing data on the cloud and finding it is no longer available, for whatever reason

With most of these services though, your data will still be on your various devices. Not like it's going to prevent you from accessing the data on your Harddrive just because it can't connect to the cloud...

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hellonearthisman

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#614760 25-Apr-2012 09:10

freitasm: For users who currently store things on c:\My Documents (yes, not the full path) neither Google Drive app or Skydrive app allow to sync that folder to the cloud.

Skydrive can, How To Add External Folders To SkyDrive

This may work with Google Drive too.

camo786

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#614765 25-Apr-2012 09:22

I have been "experimenting" with getting @domainname.co.nz email going on hotmail for my family, and using skydrive to store our documents

We prefer the hotmail interface to gmail, and the office web apps are just more familiar for MS office users

Mostly works quite nicely, but one gotcha is i you delete a file on skydrive there is no trash folder to recover it :(

Totally agree with comment that these apps should automatically or a least prompt the installer to use the "My Documents" folder

freitasm

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#614769 25-Apr-2012 09:24

hellonearthisman:
freitasm: For users who currently store things on c:\My Documents (yes, not the full path) neither Google Drive app or Skydrive app allow to sync that folder to the cloud.

Skydrive can, How To Add External Folders To SkyDrive

This may work with Google Drive too.

Transparent it isn't...

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#614781 25-Apr-2012 10:04

hellonearthisman:
freitasm: For users who currently store things on c:\My Documents (yes, not the full path) neither Google Drive app or Skydrive app allow to sync that folder to the cloud.

Skydrive can, How To Add External Folders To SkyDrive

This may work with Google Drive too.

Didn't work at all.

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#614784 25-Apr-2012 10:08

Actually... It looks like it's taking its time to check all the folder/files because now I can see some new additions to the Skydrive folder online.

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th3r3turn

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#614793 25-Apr-2012 10:38

freitasm: Both Google Drive and Skydrive suffer from the same problem: no transparent way for migration from desktop to cloud.

For users who currently store things on c:\My Documents (yes, not the full path) neither Google Drive app or Skydrive app allow to sync that folder to the cloud.

You can obviously change the folder location to be the new folder used by the app, and move the files across. But that's not transparent.

Seriously, aren't these folks thinking?

Sorry i don't understand, i use the Windows Skydrive App, then change the documents folder location to skydrive DIR. i would like to see some sort of way to map my users folder to skydrive, i can see this becoming the normal thing to do.

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#614794 25-Apr-2012 10:45

The Skydrive folder is a mirror of the cloud version. Your user's documents are in the My documents folder. They have different structures. You can move My Documents to something on Skydrive to keep that automatically in sync but you still need to copy/move the files to the new location. Or you can create junction points so that one folder on Skydrive structure is actually redirected to the My Documents folder (that's what I'm doing now in one PC).

At some stage when all files are in the cloud I can revert the configuration so that the cloud becomes the primary, and completely let go of Windows Live Mesh, which I currently use to sync between PCs and cloud (Mesh uses 5GB of a separate Skydrive "partition", invisible to users).

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P1n3apqlExpr3ss

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#614923 25-Apr-2012 14:21

So anyone actually gotten into Drive yet? Mine isnt ready yet...

jjnz1

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#614936 25-Apr-2012 14:59

P1n3apqlExpr3ss: So anyone actually gotten into Drive yet? Mine isnt ready yet...

No not yet for us, but we are Google Apps Bus users.

From what I can see, the price per GB has just gone up too, right now one of my accounts has 80GB for $20 per year. If I change/upgrade or cancel, then I move onto the new pricing.

Currently I use Google Docs as a cloud backup product using SyncDocs. It automatically backups any file less than 2GB, and still maintains the correct directory structure in GDocs.

Does anyone know if Google Drive will end up natively supporting this backup feature instead?

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