Google Docs Offers 1GB Free File Storage Why No One Should Care

Free online storage is a great thing if it comes in a quantity that really makes a difference, however Google's latest offering of 1GB of free cloud storage using the Google Docs web interface just isn't that.

Sure 1GB might might be ok for some users in the enterprise arena that wish to share a few small documents but for the common user that just isn't enough to get excited about. To start with your files can be no larger than 250MB. This quota counts only against uploaded files not associated with one of the file type supported by Google Docs. In other words, file types that don’t count against your storage include spreadsheets (xls, xlsx, csv, ods, txt, tsv, or tsb format), documents (HTML, txt, doc, docx, rtf, odt, or sxw format), and presentations (ppt or pps format). That would also include items such as PDF files, graphics, raw photos and even unedited home videos, however these would have to be fairly short to fit the size limitations.

Now don't get me wrong I like the ease of use that Google Docs offers and you do have the option of buying additional storage for $0.25 per GB per year, but come on guys a single gigabyte? I've been testing put.io and they offer 50GBs. Heck most everyone these days has a website or access to a free website with hosting that will offer more than 1GB of storage. Even most ISPs these days give you a reasonable amount of storage space. If you really wanted to throw something out there why not toss us 5Gbs?

Other Options

For those of you that know 1GB just isn't enough to get around on these days there are a few other alternatives. Yeah they aren't Google but hey Google has enough of our service these days don't they.

Dropbox offers 2GBs of free online storage
Windows SkyDrive  features 25Gbs
put.io this is a company currently in beta testing of file sharing/file storage site that mainly offers media streaming
Mozy they offer 2GBs of free storage
iDrive 2GBs of storage with tons of features
ZumoDrive another free 2Gbs of file sharing and storage

As mentioned check with your ISP most everyone these days offers at min. amount of storage space.