Google’s rumored soon-to-be-released GDrive has been talked about online in various places for a few years now.  Much pondering about what it’ll offer and do has been happening for a long time and those discussions and the demand have  spawned quite a few online storage companies into existence in the past few years.

Some are saying this type of storage  remove the need for a hard drive completely.  Some are worried about their privacy. But most are anxious to see how it’ll integrate with the many other cool apps in the Google family of free products.

The thing is that Google’s GDrive is expected to be free like other Google products. Livedrive isn’t free. A lot of the alternatives to Gdrive aren’t free either.

What’ll happen to all those companies when Google releases Gdrive?

How much does Livedrive cost? There’s a standard account option at $55.95 and there’s a pro membership at $129.95 per year.  There is a free trial period for Livedrive users to check the tool out.  Seems like a lot of companies are jumping on the bandwagon to offer fee-based online storage while they can because if GDrive makes it available for free, it won’t be long before most of  the alternatives to Gdrive vanish off the map. That’s probably why many online storage options are offering an annual membership fee instead of a monthly fee.  For anyone to survive and battle against the mighty Google, they’d need to provide a pretty stellar and unique product offering!

Google Online Storage Options

Today you can use Gmail for storage (although it’s a bit tedious compared to the idea of accessing your hard drive online) and Microsoft SkyDrive offers a large amount of free storage.  If you’ve tried Livedrive and have an opinion on it, kindly post comments here and tell us what you think!