What the 2021 Google Storage Changes Mean for You
Google Google Google Google... Why oh why oh why...
I guess it’s time for another round of What the Tech? Hot on the heels of my last post around the new Google Workspace offering – today I come to you with more news of Google changing their minds!
This time, it’s all-around their Cloud Storage. So whether you are using Google Photos or G-Suite (now called Workspace) here is a quick update on what’s happened and what this means for you.
Make sure to check out my YouTube video and subscribe to the channel if you want more of this type of stuff about technology, and also content around growing and running your own business. Firstly, let’s talk about what’s happened…
In October 2020, Google decided to change their Business Product line, called G-Suite – over to a new name, Google Workspace. However, it wasn’t just a name change – because they decided to change what was included in those various tiers of Google Workspace.
For more information on exactly what those changes are, then I recommend you go watch my video. But in terms of the major change that I’m focusing on here, which was their removal of the Unlimited Free Storage from their standard tiers. You can still get Unlimited Storage, but now you will need to upgrade to their Enterprise plan at a significantly higher cost than previously.
Google Photos
In November 2020, Google announced that they would be ending their free Unlimited Storage for Google Photo users on June 1st 2021. For those of you who aren’t aware, Google has always had a free offering within their Google Photos app. You get 15 Gigs of free storage, BUT if you chose to store your videos and photos in a reduced ‘high quality’ setting instead of the original quality, Google would allow you to store an unlimited number of photos and videos in your account.
The third kicker with Google this time is that also in November of 2020, they are changing how Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and other files are stored. Previously, all of these file types wouldn’t take up any additional space in your Google Drive storage, well now, they do. So, any Docs, Sheets, Slides or other Google Apps files will now consume space in your Google Drive, just like any other document you store.
To be honest, this all really sucks….so why have they done it? Because we’ve all had it too good to be true for a very long time! The unlimited storage and the pricing was just a great offer! This is the reason why Google pretty much won my Online Storage Comparison videos, and Online Cloud Photo Storage Comparison videos – because aside from them actually having really strong and feature-rich apps that work well, when looking at bang for the buck – they won.
What Does This Mean for You?
The answer is pretty simple actually.
My personal recommendation is to sign up for a Google Workspace account, it doesn’t matter which tier – and then once you are subscribed, you can upgrade to the new Google Enterprise plan from within your account page. With their standard or higher enterprise plans, you still get Unlimited storage. Google still caveat that this needs a minimum of 5 users to qualify, but that is still the same as what they said previously – but actually individual users could still get that unlimited storage.
Now, if you are a Google Photos user, then this can still apply to you – but to be honest… I just don’t like it. You – a consumer, shouldn’t need to be signing up for an enterprise business account to get unlimited storage. And I’m sure that Google probably doesn’t want you to do this. But in reality, that is what a lot of people, myself included, will do – because even though it is more expensive than it was before – it still presents great value for money.
To have that safety blanket of unlimited cloud storage for one fixed monthly price. Incredible. Just don’t forget that Google Drive isn’t a backup solution!
