Geek Blight

Almost a month after my post about online backup services, Google decided to spice up competition in online storage by lowering their Google Drive prices. It’s probably a jab aimed at Dropbox.

The new prices are somewhat interesting. Compared to the solution I chose a month ago, hubiC, Google offers less storage for free and way less storage for 10 EUR/USD a month. However, the sweet spot of 100 GB has comparable prices, with hubiC being 1 EUR a month (1.39 USD as of now) and Google being 1.99 USD a month. I need to store about 60 GB of data for now.

In the time I’ve been using hubiC, I must admit the service has been a bit unreliable. It’s been unavailable for several hours a couple of times and, for some reason, moving files from one folder to another from the web interface (which is the one I use) seems to take ages and is prone to failure.

On the other hand, in my brief experience so far with Google Drive (I’m uploading data as we speak), the web interface works perfectly and the service is very reliable.

As I’m encrypting data locally before uploading and using a separate account for this specific purpose, privacy is not a concern. My intention is to keep uploading data to Google Drive until I reach the free limit of 15 GB. Then, if everything keeps working as now, I’ll probably switch from hubiC to Google Drive. The few cents of difference will probably be worth it.

Some people are concerned about Google shutting the service down, but I don’t think Google is getting rid of Google Drive in the short or medium run, like they did with other services. The storage is shared for your mail, documents and pictures, and it’s an integral part of the Google account experience. When used without encryption (like I’m sure most people do), it’s also a source of information for Google about you and your social life, which helps in advertising.