Google's New Google One Cloud Storage Service Looks Like A Winner

Credit: Google

Google One looks promising

Google is restructuring and rebranding its paid cloud storage service. The new system includes a revamped price structure, some promised “extras”, a family plan, and perhaps most useful of all, unlimited free access to live help for all of Google’s consumer products and services. It’s called Google One.

The new price structure

Here is a cost comparison of Google’s current monthly storage options with what we know about Google 1.

Storage	Current	Google One
15 GB	Free	Free
100 GB	$1.99/month	$1.99/month
200 GB	Not available	$2.99/month
1 TB	$9.99/month	Not available
2 TB	$19.99/month	$9.99/month

Signing up for the 2 TB option for a year results in significant savings. Here’s how the Google One plan compares to other cloud-storage services.

Service	One year cost
Amazon	$59.99 for 1 TB / $119 for 2 TB
Apple	$120 for 2 TB
Dropbox	$99 for 1 TB
Google One	$99 for 2 TB
Microsoft	$99 for 1 TB

Live support, a family plan and extras

The blog post announcing Google One promises extras such as Google Play credits and discounts on hotels found through Google Search. Specifics aren’t spelled out.

Google One includes a family plan that allows five family members to share one paid account. Each person gets their own storage space within the limit of the plan and can use Google One’s live help feature.

Google One’s live help could turn out to be the most useful element of the new service. Google promises access to live “experts” 24/7 through phone, chat or email for all paid accounts. Google has a lot of consumer products and services, they change frequently, and the ins and outs of what they do and how they do it are not always transparent. Live help for both experienced Google users and newcomers could be extremely useful.

I’ve had occasion to talk with Google’s live chat personnel when researching articles for Forbes and the people I’ve talked with have always been helpful and friendly. They quickly got past reading their scripts, listened to what I needed, and tried to provide the information I sought or solve the problem I had. When they couldn’t answer the question or provide a solution, they promised to help, found what was needed, and got back to me quickly. If Google One’s experts are as good as the company’s current live chat personnel, the live help feature alone could be worth the price of the service.

Sign me up!

Not so fast. Google One isn’t available now and if you don’t have a paid storage plan, it won’t be coming until later this year. People with paid storage plans will be automatically upgraded to Google One and notified by email over the coming months.

If Google One sounds attractive, you can sign up to be notified of developments as Google rolls out the service. If you want to sign on for paid storage now so you can get Google One as soon as possible, you can do so here.

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