September 28, 2007

The Disjointed GDrive (or Where Do I Upload My Files?)

It's pretty weird to be a company that wants to move your data online, but not have a central place for uploading and managing that data. The long-awaited and much-delayed GDrive could be that place. But for now you have to spread your files in way too many places, with different interfaces, restrictions and options.

What Where Limits How
Documents : .html, .txt, .rtf, .doc, .odt, .csv, .xls, .ods, .ppt Google Docs Documents: 500 KB. Spreadsheets: 1 MB. Presentations: 10 MB. Maximum 5000 documents and presentations, 200 spreadsheets. One by one or by email.
Photos: .jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp * Picasa Web Albums
* Blogger
* orkut
* Picasa Web: 20 MB per image. 1 GB free space.
* orkut: 5 MB per image, up to 25 images.
One by one, by email, using an ActiveX control, a Mac uploader or using Picasa. The photos uploaded in Blogger are hosted by Picasa Web.
Videos: .mpg, .mp4, .avi, .wmv, .rm * Google Video
* Picasa Web Albums
* Blogger
* YouTube
* Google Video: 100 MB per video for the web uploader. Unlimited size for the desktop uploader.
* For Picasa Web, the maximum space is 1 GB.
* For YouTube, you can upload videos that have less than 100 MB and less than 10 mins.
* Google Video: from the web or using a desktop uploader.
* For Picasa Web, you can only use Picasa.
* For YouTube, you can only upload videos from the web interface.
Any file * Google Page Creator
* Google Groups
* Google Project Hosting
* Google Base
* Gmail
* Pages/ Groups/ Project Hoting: Maximum 10 MB per file. 100 MB free space for a site/group/project.
* Google Base lets you attach up to 15 files and less than 20 MB to an item; it has restrictions for file types.
* The maximum size for Gmail's attachments is 20 MB. You can't upload executable files.
* Only from the web interface. No way to group files.
* Google Project Hosting should be used to host open source software.
* You can use Gmail Drive, a 3rd party software "that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium". Don't upload too many files in a short time.

{ Idea by Philipp Lenssen. }

14 comments:

  1. Right thanks, that reminded me I had some stuff to delete forgotten in Google Base 8)

    The situation is frustrating indeed. I just recently gave up on PicasaWeb and decided to keep my pics in my folders on my home server and at most just mirror them to some remote server.

    I think most people would be so happy to just have a remote file system. Perhaps with well organized base folders, rather than so many interfaces scattered around.

    I can see how integrating everything is a big step to take carefully.
    For the time being, it would just be nice to have a place where to put my files though.

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  2. Windows Live managed it with SkyDrive. Why can't Google? Is there actually any evidence pointing to GDrive, or is it just years of speculation and rumour?

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  3. Great compile report!
    Could you make another column with Google's API-support? And possible make a table after where the files are stored?

    Have you seen fireuploader www.fireuploader.com that uploads files videos and photos to Google?

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  4. Why Google Drive exists and will be launched.

    1. (March 2006) From some leaked notes in a Google report: "With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc). We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today."

    2. (July 2006) An accidentally uploaded file proves GDrive already exists for Google employees.

    3. (October 2006) Screenshots from GDrive's client.

    4. (July 2007) Google owns googldrive.com through MarkMonitor.

    5. (August 2007) An internal Google video shows "the Gdrive aka Platypus icon overlaid with the lyrics, I've been ready to launch my product since 2002 ... At least round here 5 years ain't so long overdue." A Googler comments: "Platypus was intended for public release as much as [a] year ago, but then there was the push away from creating new products."

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  5. Windows Live SkyDrive is great!

    I hope GDrive measures up...

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  6. Google may want to publish the GDrive but they know that the moment they do every half-baked conspiracy theorist on the planet will claim this is google's attempt to obtain everyone's private information and therefore monitor our lives, blah, blah.

    gdrive would have to be verryyy carefully rolled out

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  7. What I really need is a Google Talk window in GDocs, so I can communicate with my team members more easily.

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  8. I have been using Gmail Drive for more than a year now, limited to 10Mb files (per file) but your whole gmail allowance is accessible. Its a dll based shell extender, where you log on with your username and password.

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  9. I have quite a lot of images and texts in Google Notebook.

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  10. this is to:
    Hans said on Sunday, September 30, 2007 1:14:00 AM PDT:
    I have quite a lot of images and texts in Google Notebook.
    questions:
    what is a lot?
    maximum size ?
    how many files?
    in how many notes?

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  11. hi, what about bandweight?

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