Google Drive, the most popular cloud drive today.
1
1
Google Drive is one of the most popular cloud drives available on the market today, and in this post, we’ll give you five reasons to switch to it. Sadly, there aren’t very many low-priced cloud storage options today, as evidenced by the boisterous prices of Microsoft’s OneDrive and the annoying monetization of iCloud. Fortunately, Google Drive is here to save us: it has low-cost monthly plans for large swaths of storage.
#1. It’s cheap and lightweight.
Unlike other cloud drives such as OneDrive and iCloud, Google Drive comes in at a respectable $1.99 per month for the 100GB storage pool plan. And, unlike OneDrive, which gives you just storage when you pay for it alone, Google Drive gives you a variety of other features, like Google Photos tools, VPN for multiple devices, and dark web monitoring. This is better than any of the competitors could do for sure! You can also share your 100GB with up to five users. This is the payment plan we recommend if you’re going to use Google Drive. If you want to step it up, you can always get the 200GB plan ($2.99/month) or the 2TB plan ($9.99/month).
#2. It doesn’t delete your files randomly.
From past experience, I’ve had to deal with OneDrive deleting my files but keeping the folders, mysteriously chucking away pictures into the recycle bin, and removing things from the cloud randomly. This was extremely annoying, and eventually it got to the point where I had to switch to Google Drive. The good part about Google Drive is that you can hook it up to back up to a network location (I have it backing up to a Synology DiskStation with Cloud Sync turned on). And, more important, you won’t open up File Explorer one day to find that Google Drive has deleted half of your files.
#3. It doesn’t try to merge folders on your local hard drive into the cloud.
Another thing that OneDrive likes to do: merge folders and files stored on your local hard drive (Documents, Videos, Music, etc.) into the cloud. Once OneDrive has done this, your files will now be hopelessly messed up: your Documents folder will no longer be present on your hard drive but instead in the cloud; as a result, you’ll probably have two Documents, two Pictures, and two Videos folders in your OneDrive. It takes a tremendous amount of work to undo the damage–I wouldn’t wish the aftermath on anyone. That’s OneDrive trying to “back stuff up” for you. Google Drive doesn’t try to pull stunts like that, and prefers to keep your local files separate from the cloud, unless you explicitly tell it to merge them.
#4. It doesn’t send you annoying email advertisement notifications.
OneDrive likes to send you random emails about upgrading to better plans, managing your files, and backing things up to your hard drive. Google Drive doesn’t do this at all; it doesn’t send you advertisements to pay up more, and it doesn’t blast out at you when a large number of files are deleted in the cloud, as OneDrive tends to do. With Google Drive, you can check the status of your cloud right from the system tray, and resolve any sync errors right through there. OneDrive has that ability as well, but I’ve noticed that the OneDrive system tray interface tends to be clunky and annoying to use.
#5. It’s intuitive and easy-to-use.
Unlike the bothersome, confusing mass of files that OneDrive often turns your computer into, Google Drive keeps things simple, putting everything in your cloud drive under one unified “My Drive” folder. OneDrive did this as well, but it didn’t work nearly as good, and things often got out of control, what with OneDrive deleting your files randomly and all. Google Drive is simple yet powerful, making it the optimal choice over OneDrive or its competitors.
And that’s pretty much it for this overview of why you should switch to Google Drive today. I sure hope this was a wake-up call if you’re still wrangling with OneDrive!
