Google Enables Paid Storage Upgrades for Individual Apps Users

Google Apps users don't usually have to worry about storage space. Depending on the type of account they have, it should be enough for most tasks, unless they're using the free tier, and it's the administrator's job to take care of things like that. But now Google is giving regular users the option to buy more space for their individual accounts via User Managed Storage.

"As more and more people discover the power and flexibility of creating and collaborating using nothing but the web, an increasing volume of user content is stored in the cloud," Gaurav Jain, Product Manager, Google Apps, wrote.

"As part of our effort to support our users’ move into the cloud, we’re pleased to announce that over the next couple of days we will be making User Managed Storage available to Google Apps customers," he announced.

Google has started enabling Apps users to access regular Google products with their account credentials.

These services have to be allowed by the administrators, but it does mean that they can set up blogs with Blogger, or store photos online with Picasa, or even share a video via YouTube.

Now Google is adding another service to the list of supported ones. User Managed Storage enables regular users to expand beyond the free storage provided by Google.

While 7 GB for Gmail will be enough for the vast majority of users, 1 GB for Picasa or Docs is not, which is why User Managed Storage was created.

With Google Apps for Business, you get 25 GB for Gmail, but still only 1 GB for Docs. If you store a lot of non-native documents and files in Docs, it will run out fast.

User Managed Storage starts at $5 for 20 GB, a big upgrade for many services. You get 80 GB for $20 and as much as 1 TB for $256.

Administrators have to enable User Managed Storage as well as Google Checkout for their domains, to allow users to purchase more storage, but the added flexibility could prove useful for many organizations and even businesses.