I'm still not convinced this is quite ready for release. The support article linked to from the storage pages is currently blank:

https://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/topic.py?topic=65427

I guess we're used to gradual releases like this from Google now though. It's usually worth it in the end!

:-)

What I don't understand is the cost scale. Why is it just $1 for 6GB, but a whopping $75 for four times that storage?

For me if I go to it now it says 20/year for 6 GB....

Yes... it changed to 20$ for 6 GB.

I thought 1$ was too good to be true.

Danny, same here. Damn!

Perhaps it was an introductory offer for testing purposes so that they didn't have to spend a fortune testing it once it was released?

> For me if I go to it now it says 20/year for 6 GB....
Damn it, I knew I should have bought it a minute ago.

If you originally clicked through to the checkout page earlier when the price was $1, you may still be able to buy it for $1.

Simply type this into your browser's address bar:

https:// checkout.google.com/view/buy?o=shoppingcart&shoppingcart=

Then see what the shopping cart ID come up as from your browser's history and load the page, then click through to continue!

Bargain!

(I guess this only works if the session hasn't timed out yet though.)

Heh, the price already went up. I updated the post, but here's the old screenshot...

http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-shared-storage-plan-large.png

I ordered at 1$... You must be fast while browsing Google Services...

man! I was about to order and I saw that the 1gb went up.... I'm sooo bumed.... they just lost $1 from me! ;)

my question is, for those of you who got it for $1 will it renew at that rate?

That would be sweet!

For Picasa Web on the Shared Storage pages it says I am using 0 of 1 GB, though on Picasaweb itself it says I am using 12% of my 1GB, which is accurate. Looks like there may still be some kinks in there.

Yeah, it says that i am using none of my storage for Picasa Web Albums when i am really using over 90 so i'm a little scared to buy more storage before the help pages and whatnot goes up with an official announcement

Official post: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/simple-way-to-get-more-storage.html

> "If only testing everything were this easy."
What is that supposed to mean? Maybe they realised their $1 mistake?

Storage should be free! I think everyone should get100 GB shared storage for free. I didn't think google would ever need to charge for this amount of storage.

(Updated the post...)

I totally agree with you dpic, maybe some kind of system where they give you more storage relative to how long you've been with them...

Yeah something like that sounds great. Customer appreciation :)

Dumb question, So why were people seeing 9 gigs in their Gmail account? Were those all of the people that had upgraded their picasa accounts in the past?

Colin:
It's the only reasonable explanation.

Exactly Colin, have a look, the number people saw is 9030 MB:

http://www.google.com/search?q=6+GB+%2B+2886+MB+in+MB

Hmm, people will soon have incentive to sign up for random Google services, just to increase their storage... But perhaps that's also a bit of extra advertising for other Google services, e.g. the Gmail user who wants more mail storage might sign up for Google Docs, and then while they're there play around with the service a bit and perhaps stick to it...
Or will Google give you the storage of the other services whether or not you've signed in to them?

[Updated the image used in the post, with thanks to Haochi!]

Its interesting that the show Picasa Web Albums on the storage page but not the Google Page Creator service. Aren't they both Google Labs services? That would add another 100 Megs to the storage mix.

I guess I am disappointed Google decided to do this. There are many services that are prepared to offer free storage and this cost seems relatively high. I have been favorably impressed with some of the capabilities of Yahoo mail and Gmail is the primary service that I use. Google Docs is useful – but somewhat flaky with its formats.
As for the photo service – the limitations on the free accounts make Picasa a poor choice. This is not the way to boost interest in their services.

I guess this means they're not going to match Yahoo Mail's "unlimited" storage limit. At least not anytime in the near future.

I'm surprised and disappointed as well. I thought Yahoo Mail raised the bar when they announced they would be moving to an unlimited storage solution in the future. Google seems so cheap to be charging like this!

what does this mean for the infamous GDrive?
If it's ever released, does this imply that it'll be a paid service?

I'm not associated with this launch, but I know some of the details... so, to answer a couple of your questions:

> for those of you who got it for $1 will it renew at that rate?

No, sorry :)

> people will soon have incentive to sign up for random Google services,
> just to increase their storage

Nope, doesn't work that way. Free allotments aren't shared; the paid storage kicks in when you go over the free allotment in any specific product. This means that opening a new PicasaWeb account, for instance, won't affect the space you get in Gmail.

So go ahead and try lots of our cool products, but do it for the adventure, not extra space :).

I have 15 GBs!!!

http://googleeverywhere.blogspot.com/2007/07/15-gb-gmail-account.html

[Link updated to permalink – Tony]

A colleague of mine did a comparison of Google's storage cost vs. Amazon's storage cost. Guess who was cheaper?

http://sitening.com/blog/2007/08/09/google-shared-storage-pricing/

Is there any way to buy 6 GB for 1 $. The initial screen shots shows google selling price at 1$ for 6 GB. But now it is 20$.

[Signature URL removed – Tony]

Gopinath, The $1 price changed almost immediately to the new price of $20. A small handful of people were lucky enough to buy it at the $1 price though. And that is why you see that in the screenshot.

"....won't have to worry about deleting files, pictures, or emails" Files?

Disappointed, what happened to "don't have to delete en email ever again..." and in top of that, the prices are rather high. I think Google just made the turn, bye bye Gdrive and "free" advt supported storage in general.

Besides, there are many hosting providers that will give you 100 or more gigs a month for 4/6 bucks a month.

it's cheaper than .mac

I mean, you have other features there too, but only 10 gigs.... here you have 25 with $75

mac sukz as well :-) another greedy company

I asked Google if those who bought this for $1 will be able to keep this and they reply: "Looks like a few lucky folks got a special price. ;) But it'll be treated as if they paid $20, and when their renewal comes up next year, they'll be on the regular pricing scheme."

Apparently, the $1 was meant for Google employees only...

Well I'm glad to have moved to .Mac actually.a couple days ago I read about the 9gb gmail yesterday but now it turns out to be something completely different. I use .Mac for email, incremental backups, iDisk, web gallery photos and videos, data synchronization like address book and calendar.and web hosting with my personal domains.

Obviously Google can't make it and will still lock your account if you try to use that storage as a virtual drive and they did not up the 20 mb upload limit... no one definitely needs more than 3 or 4 gb for email storage...

GDrive definitely is a myth or at least will be a paid option that will certainly not match the flexibility of .Mac. I canceled my Flickr Pro account at $25 and will cancel my web host at $9,95 per month. .Mac will surely be cheaper and offer more storage plus many goodies.and a strong OS integration

The fact they introduce such a subscription with only two services is also not a very smart idea. It would make more sense is they introduced this subscription for Google Pages and Google Docs as well. Once again, same ever story: pay now and...wait and see...like that Presentely application we've waiting for what...at least 6 months. I guess they will not up the 5mb document upload in Google docs as well...

Also it does not seem that such a subscription remove the ads on your google services...kind of weird...

Well we'll see where as this is gong in this and if it ever leave this ever beta stage one day...

Guillaumeb:

Well, $20 for 9GB at Google or $99.95 for 10GB at .Mac. Sure, .Mac offers more services, but also at a hefty price.

Well I see your point but think it's well worth the price right now

For like $8.3 per month you get IMAP email, 10 gb of "real" storage, not limited in any way for the upload (no 20mb limit as I said for GMail, no 5MB limit for GDocs, or ability to host websites, unlike S3), one-click incremental backup tools (it's the only app that provides both backup + remote file storage), one-click sync tool, bunch of extra stuff for ILife applications like garageband samples, Webgallery is quite interesting and well integrated in iPhoto 08 + iMovies, no adverts, Sharing features...and a lot more

What i like is that it is not restricted to just..."restricted storage"

Anyway for me it's a good deal considering that my Flickr pro account and my webhost would cost me like $145 per year and provided less tools and features.

I guess it depends on your needs but i also like the fact that all is centered in one service. I have tried to replicate for free or smaller price all the stuff provided and not only is this impossible, it also clearly lacks homogeneity... i belong to this kind of people who are tired to "try out" / "hack out" / "tweak out" or simply "wait for" never coming stuff and now I tend to prefer a seamless experience.

GuillaumeB:
> What i like is that it is not restricted to just..."restricted storage"

Except that it's restricted, in significant part, to Apple software users :-)

The price for 100GB or more makes no sense, you can more disk storage for cheaper at your local PC dealer, and you pay only once

Vinyl, this isn't just pure storage. Personally I think of it as buying extra storage for services I use because of usability/ collaboration. Right now, that's Gmail (Picasa not really). Could be other tools in the future. Hotmail could offer me 15 terrabyte for 1 cent, I wouldn't switch to it.
Also, when you buy storage at your local PC dealer they don't create backups in several places in case your disk fails, right? That being said I hope Google will increase the amount of GB connecting to each pricing step. If they roll out this limit for YouTube video storage for instance it's much too little...

Yahoo's unlimited storage is all hype anyway. As we've discussed before, unlimited storage doesn't necessarily mean unlimited storage.

<< 13. GENERAL PRACTICES REGARDING USE AND STORAGE

You acknowledge that Yahoo! may establish general practices and limits concerning use of the Service, including without limitation the maximum number of days that email messages [...] will be retained by the Service, the maximum number of email messages that may be sent from or received by an account on the Service, the maximum size of any email message that may be sent from or received by an account on the Service, the maximum disk space that will be allotted on Yahoo!'s servers on your behalf, and the maximum number of times (and the maximum duration for which) you may access the Service in a given period of time. You agree that Yahoo! has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any messages and other communications or other Content maintained or transmitted by the Service. [...] You further acknowledge that Yahoo! reserves the right to modify these general practices and limits from time to time. >>

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Also:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/uk/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html

I wonder which user has the most storage in Yahoo Mail right now and whether they've ever deleted or frozen anyone's account who they believe wasn't "following normal email practices".

http://www.picturebookmarking.com/galleries/uploaded/harddrive.jpg

[Via Reddit]

lol! Imagine paying that now. I just paid €910 for a 1tb storage, 4GB ram Dell PC.

Philipp : Did you allready get your extra storage you bought last night ? Because I still have nothing (and my credit card has allready been charged).

Not yet, no... but by tomorrow morning the 24 hours Google says it might take will have passed, I'll check again then.

I still think Google should acquire Mozy.com and their backup business. Mozy gives users 2 Gigs of free data storage and if you want to backup an unlimited amount of personal files, you can pay $4.95 a month. That would go much further than the storage offerings that Google currently offers. Plus Mozy has backup software for Windows an Mac OS's.

https://mozy.com/mozy/overview

In my opinion 20 dollars for 6GB is a good deal. I won’t mind paying that amount to get the extra storage for my Picasaweb photos. While I don’t think I will go beyond the gmail storage limit, it’s also nice that I have a fallback plan just in case I go beyond it. It’s nice to note though that this is launching in the traditional google way: no fanfare. Though I admire the simplicity of the current setup, I would be lying if I say that I’m not having high hopes for this. Gdrive is slowly coming out.

Google Tutor Jr, Flickr offers unlimited storage for $25 dollars a year for photos. Would be great to see Google match that. :)

(from Arrington)

Google’s news is purely about money. Users can purchase up to 250 GB of extra storage for email and photos. Prices start at $20/year for 6 GB, up to $500/year for 250 GB. Presumably Google will continue to increase the free storage offered at Gmail over time (currently 2.8 GB), and charge only for usage over that free baseline.

Now certainly Gmail users are better off today that yesterday – they can now choose to exceed the storage limits by simply paying a fee. But something about the news falls a little flat. Perhaps it is because Yahoo recently began offering free unlimited email storage to all users. We’re a fickle bunch in silicon valley, and like to see the big Internet companies continually one-up each other. Today Google said they were not going to play that game any more. They effectively took their toys and went home. I never thought I’d see that.

In fact, how long was the time period when it was possible to buy 6 GB with only $1?

From the discover of the feature to the correction of the price : about 2 or 3 hours.

Thanks for the info! Maybe some other readers can confirm this..

w.r.t comments on the cost, please keep in mind that the Google File System stores your data in triplicate to ensure data safety on commodity hardware. If you purchase 250GB, you are really taking up 750GB of space. For the peace of mind, it's worth the extra price.

<< Philipp : Did you allready get your extra storage you bought last night ? Because I still have nothing (and my credit card has allready been charged). >>

I have my 6GB now. And for only $1! ;-)

However, it's only showing up in Picasa Web Albums. Gmail still shows 2887 MB.

Shouldn't it be 50-50 Tony?

I thought the added storage will just go to whatever service needs the extra space. I didn't think it would go all into one service.

Yeah. Can't you choose to which services the storage will go to?

Notice the difference between these two:

http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-drive-account.jpg

http://i16.tinypic.com/4m83q7a.jpg

Yesterday i had 0% of PicasaWeb storage usage.
Now i'm getting 0.16%

I still don't have any extra storage listed anywhere, not on the shared storage account page, not in Gmail. It's over 24 hours nows...

I think there is a bug in it David, Picasa Web Albums says I'm using 1% of my allotted space but on the manage storage it still reads 0% still.

Yeah the bug is in the manage storage page.
Anyone else has 0% in this page:
https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageStorage

I think you have to go on Picasaweb first and then go on this page.

My extra storage was activated in the Google account and Google Checkout but it is still not visible in Gmail nor Picasa :

# Aug 10 : Google shipped your order.
# Aug 10 : $1.00 charge – Your credit card (VISA xxx-9086) was charged for $1.00. "GOOGLE *paid storage" will appear on your credit card statement.
# Aug 9 : Order received – Google received your order.
# Aug 9 : Order placed – Your order was placed with Google. A confirmation email was sent to you by Google.

I can now also see it on my storage page, but as you say, not in Gmail...

http://googlified.com/files/temp/gmail-storage.gif
I have this on Gmail and a similar one on PWA.

Everybody who cared knew what Microsoft were planning with storage which begs the question why Google has rushed this product so much. I would have preferred if they'd held back for a couple of weeks and launched it when it was ready.

Google, did you just not see the obvious signs of Microsoft's entrance into this arena?

I got it now, the same as Haochi...

"Storage: 1.5 GB (17%) of 8.8 GB – Manage or Upgrade"