Suitable for higher education file sharing need
August 07, 2023
Suitable for higher education file sharing need
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Google Drive
I use Google Drive to synchronize teaching materials for my professor. He picked Google Drive because it is free, and his Dropbox account had already full. Google Drive is probably not my choice had I been given that authority. It does not quite correctly present or depict the final deliverable files (Word, Excel, Powerpoint). Other file-sharing services (or Microsoft's own OneDrive) would be better if you want to edit the deliverable files directly in the app. So, I ended up creating and editing files on their own native software app and then saving them to Google Drive, so my professor could review and download them.
- Sharing files with other users
- Editing files and working concurrently with other users
- Synchronizing saved files with other users (after you and other users figured out how to set up the drive in your computers)
- Free for the most part
- Formatting issues with documents created (or edited) with Google Workspace
- Setting up the Drive in your computer (for auto synchronize) is not exactly intuitive
- Free
- Easy to use (though drive setup on a computer requires a bit more effort)
- Seamless integration with Google Mail and Calendar
- We were able to work on shared files (download or concurrent edits) almost instantaneously
- Teaching materials can be quickly shared and distributed (within minutes)
Feature-wise, Google Drive is at the bottom of its peers. However, due to its Google Mail user base, Google Drive has wide acceptance and penetration. Its ease-of-use feature is probably somewhere in the middle, lower than Dropbox but higher than OneDrive. It is free but so are the others; it's just a matter of how large of a space you need and how you plan to use it (i.e., Microsoft products, signing features, auto-synchronize, etc.)
Do you think Google Drive delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Google Drive's feature set?
No
Did Google Drive live up to sales and marketing promises?
I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process
Did implementation of Google Drive go as expected?
I wasn't involved with the implementation phase
Would you buy Google Drive again?
Yes