Author Topic: 2GB additional Google Drive storage for free (Read 25,973 times)

xtabber · « **on:** February 09, 2016, 11:41 PM »

Today is Safer Internet Day and to celebrate, Google will add 2GB for free to your Google Drive if you sign on to your account this week and verify all of your security settings.

Deozaan · « **Reply #1 on:** February 09, 2016, 11:48 PM »

Offer Expired

Link for the lazy:

https://security.google.com/settings/security/secureaccount

Just finish the security checkup and you get 2GB.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #2 on:** February 10, 2016, 12:17 AM »

I don't have a Google Drive account but I scan the giveaway sites and noticed this one:
http://sharewareonsale.com/

It makes me think they sell 17GB for 99 cents? But the giveaway gives it free? Seems weird. I suppose I could go through the process and see what happens. 17GB is enough to put a few files on.

Edit: OK the 17 GB is the usual 15 GB free plus the 2 GB you all(been in Florida too long) are talking about. Duh!!

Deozaan · « **Reply #3 on:** February 10, 2016, 12:20 AM »

Quote from: MilesAhead on February 10, 2016, 12:17 AM

I don't have a Google Drive account but I scan the giveaway sites and noticed this one:
http://sharewareonsale.com/

It makes me think they sell 17GB for 99 cents? But the giveaway gives it free? Seems weird. I suppose I could go through the process and see what happens. 17GB is enough to put a few files on.

$0.99? For a free Google Account? Methinks that site is just adding a price so people jump at the chance to get something for free.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #4 on:** February 10, 2016, 12:55 AM »

Quote from: Deozaan on February 10, 2016, 12:20 AM

Quote from: MilesAhead on February 10, 2016, 12:17 AM
I don't have a Google Drive account but I scan the giveaway sites and noticed this one:
http://sharewareonsale.com/

It makes me think they sell 17GB for 99 cents? But the giveaway gives it free? Seems weird. I suppose I could go through the process and see what happens. 17GB is enough to put a few files on.

$0.99? For a free Google Account? Methinks that site is just adding a price so people jump at the chance to get something for free.

Heh heh. Like those guys who sell stuff out of the trunks of their cars. I remember one time I guy I worked with wanted to get a backgammon board from one of these guys because it had a price tag of $19 and the guy was only asking $8. Of course the same board in the department store sold for about $8.

Btw my school email is hosted on google so all I had to do was hit the Apps Menu and click Drive. One thing good about chrome I can just drag and drop file folders to upload. Unlike FF.

4wd · « **Reply #5 on:** February 10, 2016, 07:09 AM »

Log in to 20 Google accounts and answer the survey to gain 40GB of storage ... hell yeah!

tomos · « **Reply #6 on:** February 10, 2016, 01:18 PM »

There was no notification of the extra 2GB -- but now (~ hour later), I see I do now have 17GB showing on my GDrive page.
Thanks!

f0dder · « **Reply #7 on:** February 10, 2016, 01:49 PM »

Just completed the checkout, but Drive still shows 15gig... does it take a while before the extra gigs are added?

Jibz · « **Reply #8 on:** February 10, 2016, 01:53 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on February 10, 2016, 01:49 PM

Just completed the checkout, but Drive still shows 15gig... does it take a while before the extra gigs are added?

Think so yes, mine showed 15GB right after as well, but today it says 17GB.

dr_andus · « **Reply #9 on:** February 10, 2016, 02:48 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on February 10, 2016, 01:49 PM

Just completed the checkout, but Drive still shows 15gig... does it take a while before the extra gigs are added?

Need to click on "Upgrade storage", that's where it shows the breakdown of the freebies (for some reason it counts it separately as "2016 security check-up bonus").

tomos · « **Reply #10 on:** February 10, 2016, 02:52 PM »

^ missed that.
I used deozaan's link above. It wasn't fully clear when the security check was finished, and the extra storage took a while to show (was there within an hour though).

Midnight Rambler · « **Reply #11 on:** February 10, 2016, 04:39 PM »

Thanks for the tip.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #12 on:** February 10, 2016, 05:13 PM »

Quote from: Jibz on February 10, 2016, 01:53 PM

Quote from: f0dder on February 10, 2016, 01:49 PM
Just completed the checkout, but Drive still shows 15gig... does it take a while before the extra gigs are added?
Think so yes, mine showed 15GB right after as well, but today it says 17GB.

I ran through it this morning, got to where it said 15GB, and then realized I had no idea how big it was to start with - Probably because I never use it.. But I just checked again and the extra 2 are there now.

While going through the check (again), I noticed this message at the bottom of the you're all done now page at the end of the checkup:

Quote

To help celebrate Safer Internet Day 2016, we added 2 GB of free Drive storage to your Google account because you completed the Security Checkup.

So apparently it is automatic, but slow.

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #13 on:** February 10, 2016, 05:24 PM »

To free up some space, a few days ago I went through my gmail and deleted several thousand messages. But the little statistics shown below the inbox (5.73 GB (30%) of 19 GB used) never changed - the space used never went down, even after deleting those thousands of messages. This makes me wonder if they ever really do delete old stuff. Maybe they keep it around for data mining purposes.

f0dder · « **Reply #14 on:** February 10, 2016, 05:29 PM »

Quote from: Stoic Joker on February 10, 2016, 05:13 PM

While going through the check (again), I noticed this message at the bottom of the you're all done now page at the end of the checkup:
Quote
To help celebrate Safer Internet Day 2016, we added 2 GB of free Drive storage to your Google account because you completed the Security Checkup.
So apparently it is automatic, but slow.

Yeah, I got that notification as well, but no extra gigs - they've been added now, so apparently it just takes some handfuls of minutes

Oh, and thanks for the tip, xtabber!

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #15 on:** February 10, 2016, 06:26 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on February 10, 2016, 05:29 PM

so apparently it just takes some handfuls of minutes

I imagine this is because of Google's approach to Big Data. Much of their scalability is built on an idea of "eventual consistency", rather than a completely ACID philosophy as we're used to from conventional relational DBs and stuff.

f0dder · « **Reply #16 on:** February 10, 2016, 10:17 PM »

Quote from: CWuestefeld on February 10, 2016, 06:26 PM

Quote from: f0dder on February 10, 2016, 05:29 PM
so apparently it just takes some handfuls of minutes
I imagine this is because of Google's approach to Big Data. Much of their scalability is built on an idea of "eventual consistency", rather than a completely ACID philosophy as we're used to from conventional relational DBs and stuff.

Even if they had a tradional db storing stuff, it's not unreasonable that a "increase storage capacity" thing would be put on a message queue, and it also wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of people claiming those extra 2GB at the moment

4wd · « **Reply #17 on:** February 10, 2016, 11:35 PM »

Quote from: Jibz on February 10, 2016, 01:53 PM

Quote from: f0dder on February 10, 2016, 01:49 PM
Just completed the checkout, but Drive still shows 15gig... does it take a while before the extra gigs are added?
Think so yes, mine showed 15GB right after as well, but today it says 17GB.

I've done something like 10 accounts so far, the longest any of them has taken to show up the change is 3 minutes - just sit in GMail and refresh the page every minute, it tells you how much you have down the bottom of the email list, eg. Using xx of 17GB (or more, it's cumulative, I have 19GB on a couple of accounts).

I don't get the Upgrade Storage button either, just get this:

The 2GB was added by the time I switched to the other tab to check.

EDIT: That's just from logging into https://myaccount.google.com

f0dder · « **Reply #18 on:** February 10, 2016, 11:37 PM »

Quote from: 4wd on February 10, 2016, 11:35 PM

I've done something like 10 accounts so far, the longest any of them has taken to show up the change is 3 minutes - just sit in GMail and refresh the page every minute

This is why we can't have nice things!

No wonder if there was a bit of load on their systems with people doing that...

MilesAhead · « **Reply #19 on:** February 10, 2016, 11:38 PM »

I guess I didn't need to fill out that security thingie. It only shows the space I have used in Drive. While going through the various info pages for my account one pane had the sentence (paraphrased as I could not find it again) "Everyone in MyMDC.net can use unlimited storage." Apparently they sold schools some free software that comes with sky is the limit online storage.. or something. There was an article in PCMag in 2014

4wd · « **Reply #20 on:** February 10, 2016, 11:41 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on February 10, 2016, 11:37 PM

Quote from: 4wd on February 10, 2016, 11:35 PM
I've done something like 10 accounts so far, the longest any of them has taken to show up the change is 3 minutes - just sit in GMail and refresh the page every minute
This is why we can't have nice things!

No wonder if there was a bit of load on their systems with people doing that...

Who me?

MilesAhead · « **Reply #21 on:** February 27, 2016, 03:51 PM »

Hmm, I am not sure what the actual Google Drive situation is at MDC. The only reference to a storage max I can find is a 2014 reference to 25 GB of free storage. I guess I should assume it may be deleted at the end of the term but I only have one student's word for that so far. He may just be yanking my chain though.

Edit: I did find out that if you take one or more for credit classes you can sign up for Word365 and get a TB of free storage on OneDrive. This is in addition to the 25 GB Google drive. Again I am not sure how permanent the storage is.

Midnight Rambler · « **Reply #22 on:** March 04, 2016, 04:26 PM »

Topic's subject should be changed to reflect that the offer's long expired.

dr_andus · « **Reply #23 on:** March 04, 2016, 04:55 PM »

Though it might be repeated on the same day next year.

Deozaan · « **Reply #24 on:** March 04, 2016, 08:39 PM »

Quote from: Midnight Rambler on March 04, 2016, 04:26 PM

Topic's subject should be changed to reflect that the offer's long expired.

I did what I could.