Google Drive announced today - 5GB of free web storage

[64Guitars]

The long-anticipated Google Drive was launched today. It provides 5GB of free web storage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17831725

https://drive.google.com/start

To see if it's suitable for offline storage of MP3s which can be played using our [singlemp3][/singlemp3] tags, I've uploaded my cover of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" to Google Drive and posted it here:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=15050.0

Like SkyDrive and other web storage services, the link to your file which Google Drive provides is not a direct link to the MP3 file. Instead, it takes the user to a Google web page from which they can access the file. This is no good for our MP3 player. However, if you download the file from that page then look in your browser's download list, you should be able to get the true URL of the MP3 file. It's a ridiculously long link, but some of its parameters are not required so you can shorten it a bit by removing the "&nonce" and "&user" parameters and their values from the end of the URL. Paste what's left between the [singlemp3][/singlemp3] tags and it should work.

The only remaining question for me is how long will the URL remain valid? If you try the same thing at SkyDrive, you'll find that the MP3 player will only work for a few hours or days. Then Microsoft changes the URL so the player no longer works. I'm hoping that won't happen with Google Drive, but only time will tell.

If you have a gMail account, then you already have access to Google Drive and can begin using it immediately. The same may be true for other Google accounts such as YouTube, but I'm not certain.

That 5GB of free storage could come in handy for collaborations, so I think Songcrafters members should check it out. My only concern is that Google is not known for respecting people's privacy. Quite the opposite. They're in the business of collecting data which they can use to attract advertisers. So I'd be careful about what files you store on Google Drive. I wouldn't upload anything containing personal data.

[T.C. Elliott]

I've a gmail account but no drive available at this time. I've signed up for the email notice when it's ready. *pout*
Hopefully it'll be a permanent link, but I have my doubts.

[64Guitars]

From what people are telling me in this topic, it doesn't work for song posts. I suspect that the URL has something embedded in it to identify the file owner and only he or she can access the file directly. But at least it's 5GB of free space that can be used for collaborations.

I also found out that SkyDrive has reduced their free space from 25GB to 7GB. But, for a limited time, existing SkyDrive users can keep their free 25GB of storage space if they click on the link at the top of the page that says "SkyDrive's free storage is changing - claim your free 25GB".



I don't know how long this offer is available for, so if you have a SkyDrive account, login to it now and claim your free 25GB.