Google Cloud Storage now swallows posted tapes, USBs, and hard drive backups

Google’s new Offline Media Import/Export service is similar to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Import/Export, which was first launched in 2009.

Iron Mountain said at the time that it was working with Google to develop an “offline ingestion service” for customers to send in disks and tapes to its locations, from where they are uploaded to Nearline.

That’s why Google has introduced Offline Media Import/Export, a new feature for Google Cloud Platform that lets you literally ship a hard drive, flash drive, storage tapes, or whatever other kinds of storage you have to a service provider, who throws it into Google’s cloud storage for you. Google has also been challenging Amazon on price.

In explaining the service, Google mentions that it could take as long as 100 days for one terabyte of data to be uploaded over a standard business DSL connection. However, upload speeds generally top out at 1Mbps, with most plans providing just 768kbps (kilobits per second) for upload. To note, a third-party company will be handling the content transfers and not Google itself, and it definitely isn’t free.

“This also assumes that no one else is using the same network connection”, Chong noted.

Iron Mountain is now the only third-party service provider that uploads the data in North America after you’ve sent off your storage. According to TechCrunch, Mountain View used to charge $80 per disk during the preview period, but it’s unclear how much each, say, thumb drive would cost for this expanded version. Service providers will start offering the service in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region, according to the page describing the new service.

There you have it. While we do not need to elaborate upon how important cloud storage is, Google’s service may just make those who are undecided about committing to cloud because of all the attendant difficulties, take the leap. Still, the addition of Google means that all three of the largest clouds now supports the mailing in of storage drives.

The reason for offering this service is simple: speed.