News - Google cloud storage pooled across services

[HEXUS]

Now you get 15GB across Gmail, Drive and Google+ Photos.

Read more.

[jnutt]

I like this idea.

[watercooled]

Glad to hear it, although it comes as a slight (pleasant) surprise for the cynic in me TBH. The 5GB storage space is fairly easy to fill for many people, while very few people will come even remotely close to the 10GB email quota, so they could've offered essentially anything for headline numbers while knowing only a few outliers will actually take advantage of it.

However, I can see this causing problems for some less careful users - what happens if you're unaware of the change and fill your quota with photos or something? Will it end up bouncing emails or will Google, being Google, give you a bit of leniency then shout at you next time you log on?

[cheesemp]

Good point watercooled. Hopefully they won't let you fill the 15Gb up just with drive content. Would love to know what happens though as I use gmail/drive a lot.

[Saracen]

Each to his own, I guess, and I'm sure lots of people will like this.

Me? I'm indifferent to whether it's "walled off" or common, 15GB or 15TB, free or paid for, I am not storing my data on Google. Or for that matter, on an MS Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud, or any other flavour of airborne accumulation of water vapour. Not now, not ever. It's staying carefully under my control, where both privacy and security, and who gets access, are determined solely by me, and the security I implement, and the locks on my windows, and doors, not some US MegaCorp's privacy policy and T&C's.

As I say, each to his own, but for me, no way, no how.

[watercooled]

I don't see it as a major problem provided you categorise what you want to store, but yeah I wouldn't be trusting anything private to the 'cloud'. I don't mind stuff like this for sharing/storing non-private stuff, and there's always encryption if you want to use it as backup space.

[crossy]

I don't see it as a major problem provided you categorise what you want to store, but yeah I wouldn't be trusting anything private to the 'cloud'. I don't mind stuff like this for sharing/storing non-private stuff, and there's always encryption if you want to use it as backup space.

What he says!

Unfortunately for Google I got "suckered in" by the generous allowance on Dropbox that came with my Galaxy S3. And that's turned out to be a boon for photo sharing and also "safe" storage of stuff like these self-printable tickets that Ticketmaster sometime issue (and STILL charge you an "admin" fee for!). Also now using it for stuff that I'd normally use a flash drive for - like my WPA2 key. But like watercooled says - anything that's "personal" (apart from photographs) or sensitive (like passwords) gets encrypted before it hits the cloud servers. If I'd got a lot of "protected" content then I'm very sure that I'd be looking to put a Truecrypt container into that cloud storage.

I've got a bit of a downer on Google's cloud services since a brain-dead Google+ update to my phone decided to upload my entire photograph library without asking me first. That said, the idea that you've just got a lump of 15GB to use the way that you see fit seems pretty sensible to me.

Me? I'm indifferent to whether it's "walled off" or common, 15GB or 15TB, free or paid for, I am not storing my data on Google. Or for that matter, on an MS Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud, or any other flavour of airborne accumulation of water vapour. Not now, not ever. It's staying carefully under my control, where both privacy and security, and who gets access, are determined solely by me, and the security I implement, and the locks on my windows, and doors, not some US MegaCorp's privacy policy and T&C's. As I say, each to his own, but for me, no way, no how.

So you're not a fan of - as the folks on Linux Outlaws put it - of "cloudy, cloud, cloud"? As you rightly say - each to their own. Unfortunately, I suspect that it's going to get increasingly difficult to avoid the clouds - especially with "cloud applications" becoming the vendors preferred future way of screwing their addicts, sorry, "leveraging their customer base"

[Saracen]

....

So you're not a fan of - as the folks on Linux Outlaws put it - of "cloudy, cloud, cloud"? As you rightly say - each to their own. Unfortunately, I suspect that it's going to get increasingly difficult to avoid the clouds - especially with "cloud applications" becoming the vendors preferred future way of screwing their addicts, sorry, "leveraging their customer base"

No, I'm not a fan, but perhaps that needs clarification as I don't mean quite what it sounds like.

I see nothing fundamentally or inherently wrong in cloud services, or subscription apps for that matter. Both have their advantages, so their appeal to a given buyer depends on the circumstances of that buyer, and their objectives and buying criteria. But to me, they have no appeal at all. For any personal or sensitive data, I'm not putting it on the cloud, encrypted or not, period.

Then, there's Google. If there's a company out there those business ethos I trust less, I can't think who they are. As far as I'm concerned, payday loan companies are paragons of virtue in comparison, and I dislike them, but at least I can simply refuse to do any business with them. But Google? I want them to know nothing, absolutely nothing at all, about me. How do I go about achieving that?

So, I won't use cloud storage, because for me any advantages it offers me are outweighed by disadvantages. Other people's mileage may well vary, and if it does, good luck to them. Cloud/subscription apps have their advantages too, but have no appeal for me. I will pay, when it suits me, to upgrade an application, but ONLY when it suits me, not just because a new version is out.

For example, I still have machines using Windows XP, and Office 2000. And, since buying the XP and Office 2000 licences, they've cost me nothing, but are still doing the job I bought them for. If I'd had them on subscription, they'd have cost me a fortune by now.

If someone needs, or just would, automatically buy every upgrade that comes out, then maybe subscription apps are a good deal. But I don't work that way, and I'll evaluate a software purchase based on a known cost, not a subscription. That's why I bought a house, albeit on a mortgage, and didn't rent. And now, of course, I own the house outright and pay neither mortgage (which I paid off early) or rent. Had I paid rent, I'd still be paying out large sums every month. But there are circumstances, at least in the short term, where rental is the best bet, even for someone that could buy on a mortgage.

So no, I'm not a fan, personally, of cloud services or apps, but that doesn't mean I dislike them as such, just that they're of no interest to me.

[watercooled]

Of course when I say encryption, I mean a layer you implement yourself - cloud services seem to like proving that their 'super secure unbreakable encryption' is a load of rubbish. Spideroak seem to do encryption fairly well, but their software isn't entirely open source so it's harder to trust it, and I ended up giving up with the last version as it's unstable/buggy - it crashed every now and then, maxing a CPU core untill you manually killed the process, and having some inbuilt filter to avoid backing up important files in my Appdata folder was the final straw. I might try their latest version to see if it's improved any.

[Saracen]

Of course when I say encryption, I mean a layer you implement yourself - cloud services seem to like proving that their 'super secure unbreakable encryption' is a load of rubbish. Spideroak seem to do encryption fairly well, but their software isn't entirely open source so it's harder to trust it, and I ended up giving up with the last version as it's unstable/buggy - it crashed every now and then, maxing a CPU core untill you manually killed the process, and having some inbuilt filter to avoid backing up important files in my Appdata folder was the final straw. I might try their latest version to see if it's improved any.

Oh, indeed. I certainly don't trust their encryption, and I'm absolutely not about to try to work out which cloud storage has encryption I can trust, and which doesn't. So yes, any encryption would have to be implemented at my end.

But, and I stress again I'm talking about me, personally, it's benefit versus disadvantage. I see no real benefit, for me, in cloud storage. And, if I don't put stuff in the cloud in the first place, the efficacy, or otherwise, of the encryption, is immaterial.

I keep some data I regard as very personal, some that is private, some that is business confidential and some that, frankly, could be published for all I care.

For instance, detailed personal accounting, tax records, bank statements for years, utility bills for years, details of all bank accounts and investments, medical records, personal correspondence, genealogical data that would be an ID thief dream, etc, is all in PDF form, or in databases, on a server, and mirrored, and archived, and stored off-site. That server, and the mirror, are on a wired network, isolated from the internet. And by isolated, I don't mean some kind of firewall, I mean there is no physical connection to my internet router, or the machines connected to it, and no wifi capability on that network. The ONLY way to access any of that data is to be physically inside my property, and even then, be able to get past the .... yes, you've guessed it .... encryption.

Paranoid, much? Moi?

[Scribe]

Just for the record, business users get 30GB, which makes sense as they also got 25GB for gmail previously.

[Neostar]

This idea is awesome

[Funkstar]

15GB total?

Hmmm, might actually persuade me away from Dropbox once my HTC free space runs out. 5GB wasn't enough, but 15GB should be a good starting point.