[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Google Drive: 5 Things Needed to Succeed here

[JeffVanDusseldorp]

No file size limitations ... or at least, some pretty big ones. If I have 1.5 gb worth of data files to move up to the cloud, I don't want to have to break that into multiple data files. That will quickly take away from ease-of-use.

[vertical2010]

Only 5GB free. Really? I would expect more from Google, especially since MS Skydrive offers 25GB and Box 50GB.

Why not make a splash and go with 100GB free? Google, Don't be Cheap!

[aart12]

Absolutely critical features:
• Sync any folder (NOT like DropBox)
• File/folder filtering. Filter out by name (TMP, DESKTOP.INI, THUMBS.DB, BRIDGECACHE, etc.), size, date, etc.
• Sync pause button and/or schedule when sync takes place
• Bandwidth throttling and conditional limits (bandwidth when system is in use, and when idle)
• Multiple system sync (sync between home-work-laptop-tablet-phone, etc.)
• File sharing and share logging
• Upload / Download encryption
• Native file viewer/player
• No file size limitation
• Smartphone, Tablet access apps

[aart12]

Absolutely critical features:

-Sync any folder (NOT like DropBox)

-File/folder filtering. Filter out by name (TMP, DESKTOP.INI, THUMBS.DB, BRIDGECACHE, etc.), size, date, etc.

-Sync pause button and/or schedule when sync takes place

-Bandwidth throttling and conditional limits (bandwidth when system is in use, and when idle)

-Multiple system sync (sync between home-work-laptop-tablet-phone, etc.)

-File sharing and share logging

-Upload / Download encryption

-Native file viewer/player

-No file size limitation

-Smartphone, Tablet access apps

[brian31001]

While the consumer market for this type of application is saturated ie Oxygen, box.net, dropbox, sharefile, on and on...

Enterprise customers are looking for SAML (single Sign-on) and Active directory integration. Automatic user provisioning, hybrid storage. (local and cloud) backup to local / traditional methods and Discovery to name a few.

[clintonstark]

Great points. Right on the money. Especially agree that the mobile apps need to be decent. Google has a huge advantage: integrating Google Drive with all its apps/services. Though, as we've seen with G+ it doesn't guarantee success.

[mo1076]

box.net is useless, it caps your upload to 2 gigs at any one time so having a free 50 gigs on box is not useful if you can't upload your data all at once, what if you have a file that's more than 2 gigs.

[RyanBeasse]

aart12, on 17 April 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

Absolutely critical features:

-Sync any folder (NOT like DropBox)

Symbolic Links make this very possible in DropBox.

[MylesCm8zj]

Google Drive (GDrive)-
Heavily integrated into Google Play.
Offer 5GB of free storage to Google account users
Set up the file system similar to Windows in that you have My Music, My Videos, My Photos, My Documents, On Google services, and Other.
Have the service work like this:
My Music redirects users to Play Music. After users fill the 20,000 free songs stored on Play Music, each song uploaded to the Play Music afterwards counts against ones GDrive.
My Videos redirects users to Play Videos. Any video uploaded to this folder
This is a mobile app for Android as well as a cloud services that allows file to be backed up if the share button is clicked and said file will be counted against one's GDrive storage capacity.
Pricing plan for storage will be similar to what is already instituted and at launch all new Google Apps customers will be migrated to new plan. Old Apps users have the option to keep current plan or switch to a plan of equal cost.
*When Android ask to sync Google Photos, My Photos from the GDrive power this, thus removing Google Photos from that What is Google+ Photos/ Picasa/ Picasa Web Albums/ Android Gallery confusion.
*You know how Google+ came as a social layer and it quickly integrated with all Google services as the way to socially share information from that product. GDrive needs to be that rigid in approach. Allow files to be uploaded for a specific folder accessible on GDrive in labeled folder for said product.

[achraf52]

As I got 50 Gb on Box for installing Android app, then I would like to expect from Google just a bigger space and to make everything in one place we could have just Gmail and Documents stored in separate folders in Drive rather than having separate storage limits, also Picasa, Blogger, Plus could have separate folders in main account, this way could make it easy for everyone to handle their files in one place .

[JonathanWongalap]

vertical2010, on 17 April 2012 - 07:06 AM, said:

Only 5GB free. Really? I would expect more from Google, especially since MS Skydrive offers 25GB and Box 50GB.

Why not make a splash and go with 100GB free? Google, Don't be Cheap!

Well that's just impossible from an economic standpoint but anything above 10 or even 15GB is more then doable for Google.

[BjarneNilsson]

vertical2010, on 17 April 2012 - 07:06 AM, said:

Only 5GB free. Really? I would expect more from Google, especially since MS Skydrive offers 25GB and Box 50GB.

Why not make a splash and go with 100GB free? Google, Don't be Cheap!

Well here is the thing, in contrast to microsoft sky drive, at google averyone allready has an account (I assume yoy will be able to use your exsiting Google account for Google drive) and people trust Google more than ms(IMHO).
We may ask the question why only 5GB free, well pople tend to use up what ever the get for free, and with media groing ever larger it is no strech to say that most pople can easely burn 25GB. Lets jyst do the numbers for a very small (compared to google total costumer base) nubber of people say 10000

storagge requirementss
5GB: 10000*5=50000=48.8TB
25GB:10000*25=250000=244.1TB

Well that is a big diference (ok not everyone uses all their storage), As i dont't know googles cost per GB I can't comment on the total cost other than to say that 244TB probably is vastly more expensive than 49TB, and correct me if I'm wrong here (not a storage expert): I guess 48TB an be prety easely put togethert with a few nas boxes in a rack where as 244TB wil probably need a san and mayby even epspensive stuff as FcOE or FC thats realy big money

[ArmandoRodriguez]

vertical2010, on 17 April 2012 - 07:06 AM, said:

Only 5GB free. Really? I would expect more from Google, especially since MS Skydrive offers 25GB and Box 50GB.

Why not make a splash and go with 100GB free? Google, Don't be Cheap!

I have a Box account (I never use it for whatever reason), but I think you can only upload files in increments of 250MB...

I wonder how much data people actually use with these kinds of services. 100GBs would be awesome, but that sounds a bit ridiculous when you think about the amount of server space (not to mention costs) associated with giving several million people that much storage capacity. 25GB sounds a bit more reasonable, but I expect that Google will have options to buy more storage space should people need more than 5GB (most probably won't).

[HugoMoors]

JeffVanDusseldorp, on 17 April 2012 - 06:55 AM, said:

No file size limitations ... or at least, some pretty big ones. If I have 1.5 gb worth of data files to move up to the cloud, I don't want to have to break that into multiple data files. That will quickly take away from ease-of-use.

The limit on Google Docs is 10GB right now, I have 3GB zip backups of my data in a Google Docs collection (I pay Google $50 for 200GB all my full resolution photo's are on Google's servers too)
Best peace of mind ever I don't have to worry about my backups anymore and when Google Drive comes out my backup process will become very simple indeed

[VivienNovak]

Actually, the most important feature to me would be the ability to encrypt/decrypt files on the fly when uploading and downloading from Google Drive. A private key based solution would be preferable, even though I realise that searching would not work in that case. Another important feature would be the ability to import data from existing cloud storage accounts.