So Google Docs is now Google Drive and I like it but it lacks the simplicity of Dropbox for me. The setup is simple and it mass downloads all the files I have uploaded to Google Docs. My big problem is that file storage means files and the files you create on the web side of Google Docs stay there. When you are in the Google Drive folder they are just links to that specific document in drive so you can’t edit them anywhere but there.
That means if I want to work on a document I started in Google Docs I need to go online download it into a .doc file to my computer which kind of defeats the purpose of the entire Drive concept. I don’t mind sharing my data with the cloud and even having the cloud be the primary repository for some files but if you are going to say sync really mean it so I can have a local copy available when I am not online or near a Wi-Fi point. I already use Google Cloud Connect which means files I create in Word are already synced to docs so they are not in the Drive folder which is fine I just don’t see why I can’t have a local copy in my preferred format.
With Dropbox anything I do on one computer syncs automatically to the others and while the overall storage capacity is less at least I have all the files not just a link to them. Would Google Drive make me stop using Dropbox, in a word no. They are not the same thing even though they have several parallels and at least with Dropbox I know the data is actually on my computer not just pretending.
I know this is just the first iteration but I hope they add the actually files to my drive folder pretty quickly. Here is what Google has to say about drive.