Danny Gorog10 August 2007, 6:17 AM
Google has finally started to offer Gmail and Picasa Web Album users the ability to upgrade their storage. It's about time.
Google has finally come to the party and started offering store upgrades for its popular Gmail and Picasa albums products. As standard, Gmail comes with 2.8GB of storage while Picasa Albums comes with 1GB free. With Gmail in particular, Google's persistent reminders never to delete emails are starting to pay off, as a typical user of the service doesn't bother deleting anything anymore. Now, with the option of upgrading, users who have learned to rely on Gmail as an email archive don't have to change their address quite yet.
Purchasing additional storage from Google is easy. Simply follow this
link and select the 'Upgrade storage option'. You'll be able to choose four different options ranging from a 6GB plan for US$20/year to a 250GB plan for US$500/year. Of course to pay you'll need to use Google's own Google Checkout system.
The extra storage you buy is shared between Gmail and Picasa Albums. I suspect Google will add additional services that share this pooled space however Gmail and Picasa are really the two important ones from a storage perspective.
It's a clever strategy for Google to monetize Gmail, and one I'm sure they've planned since its initial release. I remember when I first signed up for my Gmail account and thought to myself there's was no way in hell that I could possibly use all that FREE space. Well, three years on I have.
If you'd prefer not to pay for extra storage you can always sign up for a free Google
Apps hosting account, as long as you have your own domain name. Going down this road gives you access to as many 2GB email addresses as you want under your domain and means for example you can create a backup archive email address that automatically downloads email from your regular account via POP.