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Google Drive is an incredibly powerful tool for storing and organizing all sorts of data. And best of all, its available to anyone with a Google account for free (at least to start). Additionally, because Drive holds all your files in the cloud, it offers some important advantages compared to stashing everything locally on your phone or PC. Drive also works on practically any device with an internet connection, which makes it easy to use at home, at school, in the office and everywhere in between.

However, if youre new to Drive, there are some important basics you should know before you transfer over all your data and files. So heres a quick rundown covering the most critical things about Googles popular cloud storage service.

Every Google Drive user gets 15GB of free storage. However, any data you have saved in Google Photos also counts towards that limit. So if youre using that to back up your pictures , you may not have a ton of room left over for documents and files. That said, you can increase your storage in Drive via a Google One subscription, which starts as low as $1.99 a month (or $20 a year) for 100GB of storage and goes up to $9.99 for 2TB of storage (or $100 a year).

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For most people, 100GB is more than enough to stash important files, work docs, and family photos. But if youre planning on using Drive as a way to backup all your data, youll probably want to go with one of the bigger plans. The nice thing is that even though the basic $20 a year plan is relatively cheap, there are a number of ways to get additional storage for free, at least temporarily. For example, anyone who buys a new Chromebook will get 100GB of space in Drive free for a year, while customers new to Google One may get offers to test the service out with a free one-month subscription.

So before you start uploading all your files, youre going to want to figure out how much storage you need and how much that may (or may not) cost you.

Once youve figured out how much storage you need, you can begin uploading or transferring your files to Drive. For single files or data stored locally on your device, you can simply tap the New button and select the option for File or Folder upload. On a computer, you can also drag and drop files into your browser window when you are on the Drive website. Drive supports a wide variety of file types including most of the most popular formats like .JPGs, .PNGs, .GIFs, .MP3s, and more. For a full list of support file types, check out Googles official Help Center here.

After you have all your files uploaded, you can manage them just like you would locally on your phone or computer. You can create nested folders and drag and drop files from one place to another. And of course, you can look for a specific file or folder by typing in the search box, though its important to remember that if youre storing a lot of files in Drive, it may take a bit longer to find them (especially if your internet connection isnt very speedy). So if youre able to create a general directory of folders for important projects or data sets on day one, youll probably save yourself a lot of time and headaches later.

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Its also important to note that while you can create new Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc. directly within Drive on PC, on mobile you need to install both Drive and the specific productivity program you want individually. Thats because while they all work together, they are considered separate apps.

Another good way to use Google Drive to organize your work is to save templates for various projects in Docs. This allows you to start writing a script or create forms without starting from scratch every time. You can also save templates for things like bibliographies, potentially saving students time when trying to cite sources for a research paper.

Alternatively, instead of using dedicated apps, you can share a Google Sheet with roommates to help figure out the cost of utilities and other shared expenses. And while it wasnt strictly designed for this, students have discovered that when places like schools ban or put restrictions on typical messaging apps, you can still chat with friends using Google Docs. All you have to do is invite people to a blank doc and then use real-time collaboration to talk and respond to each other. And once youre done, you can simply delete the doc, or keep it around for another day.

In addition to making cloud storage simple and easy to use, one of Google Drives most powerful features is its range of collaboration tools. Sharing a file or document with someone else is as simple as hitting the share button and entering their email. Alternatively, Drive can generate a link to send via text, social media or your messaging app of choice. Once someone has access, youll be able to view or edit the file with them in real-time.

That said, its important to know who youre sharing your files with and how they are using them. For example, it might be really helpful to give editing permission to a teacher or mentor if youre looking for help with an essay, but less so if youre just sharing an ebook with a friend. In addition to the owner of the file, Drive offers three different levels of access: viewer, commenter and editor. And if something goes wrong and you ever want to see an older copy of a Google Doc, Sheet or Slide, you can open the File menu and select the option that says Version history.

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Viewers are only able to see and read the document, but dont have the ability to change any of the content. Commenters can view and surface thoughts and questions about the content by using Googles Comment tool, while editors can make changes just like the owner of a doc.

If you want to see files that others have sent you recently, you can click on Google Drives Shared with me tab. And if you have a Google Workspace account through school or work, you can also open the handy Activity Dashboard by clicking on the squiggly icon. (Its in the top right next to the blue Share button on a desktop.) Finally, if you want a fast way to see which files youve shared with others, you can type to: into Drives search box.

While Google Drive is intended primarily as a way to manage docs and files stored in the cloud, it does support offline access, which can be handy when you dont have a good internet connection. However, there are some steps you need to take before you can get the full benefit of using Drive offline.

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First, you need to make some changes to your Drives settings while connected to the internet before going offline. On a computer, you need to click the gear icon in the top right corner of your Google Drive browser tab, hit Settings and then check the box next to the Offline menu option. On mobile, youll need to open the Drive app, find a specific file and then designate for offline access by enabling the option from the More icon (it's the one that looks like three vertical dots). Once you do that, youll be able to access, edit and save any changes you make. And the next time your device connects to the internet, it will automatically sync any changes you made to the offline doc to the one saved in the cloud. Meanwhile on a Chromebook, all you have to do is open up your Google Drive settings, scroll down, check the box next to the Offline option and hit Done.

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IBM has reported financial results for the second 2022 quarter, ended June 30, with storage hardware sales growing at the start of a new mainframe cycle.

Total group evenues were $15.54 billion, up 16 percent year-on-year at constant currency. Some 5 percent of the increase was attributed to sales to Kyndryl which was spun off last year into a separately traded entity. Net profit was $1.39 billion, up a tad on the year-ago $1.33 billion.

IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna said: In the quarter we delivered good revenue performance with balanced growth across our geographies, driven by client demand for our hybrid cloud and AI offerings. The IBM team executed our strategy well. With our first-half results, we continue to expect full-year revenue growth at the high end of our mid-single digit model.

The company divides its business into four segments: Consulting, Software, Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Platform, and Infrastructure. Storage hardware is included in the Infrastructure segment as part of the Distributed Infrastructure sub-segment, but not revealed. Storage software is included in the Software segment and, again, not revealed. The segment results were:

IBM said there was a solid z16 mainframe launch in April and the company released a new generation of Power servers earlier this month. Mainframe sales attract DS8000 storage array sales in their wake.

CFO Jim Kavanaugh said in the earnings call: Infrastructure performance, which reflects a good start to our z16 product cycle, was up 25 percent. Software and infrastructure each include about seven points of growth from the commercial relationship with Kyndryl.

He added: Distributed infrastructure revenue grew 17 percent this quarter. This growth was led by storage, driven by both high-end storage tied to the z16 cycle and distributed storage. We also had good performance in high-end Power10. We interpret that as meaning FlashSystems sales were up.

Subscription sales are growing, Kavanaugh said. Across the four Hybrid Platform and Solution business areas, our annual recurring revenue, or ARR, is nearly $12.9 billion, up 8 percent.

The company had expected full-year free cashflow to be between $10 billion and $10.5 billion but reduced that to $10 billion as a result of withdrawing its business from Russia. It made no comment about supply chain or pandemic issues in its earnings release and presentation, but they did feature in the earnings call. Kavanaugh mentioned the impact of increased component cost and supplier premiums on z16 profitability.

Kavanaugh said third-quarter revenue expectations are for year-on-year growth of 9 to 10 percent at constant currency. Overall, he said: We are a faster-growing, focused, disciplined company with sound business fundamentals.

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IBM storage revenues up thanks to mainframe refresh Blocks and Files - Blocks and Files

CXL memory pooling could drastically increase the amount of memory available to in-memory applications, such as Redis with its database. But what does Redis itself think?

Memory pooling with CXL uses the Computer eXpress Link protocol, based on the PCIe 5 bus, to enable servers to access larger pools of memory than they could if they only used local, socket-accessed DRAM.

We spoke to Redis CTO and co-founder Yiftach Shoolman, who thinks CXL memory pooling is a positivre development.

Blocks and Files: How do you see CXL 2.0 memory pooling affecting Redis?

Yiftach Shoolman: Redis is an in-memory real-time datastore (cache, database, and everything in between); as such, CXL enables Redis to support larger datasets at a lower price per GB as it extends the capacity of each node in the Redis cluster with more cost-effective DRAM.

Furthermore, CXL enables the deployment of more memory per core (or virtual cores) in each node in the Redis cluster. This is great for users who use Redis Enterprise (our commercial software and cloud service) as they can now deploy more databases or caches on the same infrastructure and reduce their deployment costs using the built-in multi-tenant capability of Redis Enterprise.

Blocks and Files: How could Redis manage the access speed discrepancy between a servers directly connected DRAM and the CXL memory pool?

Yiftach Shoolman: Redis Enterprise uses its Redis on Flash technology to enable memory tiering capabilities, in which hot objects are stored in DRAM, and warm objects are stored in SSD. CXL provides another (middle) tier that can potentially extend this hierarchy, i.e. hot objects will be stored in DRAM, the warm objects in CXL (cheap memory or Persistent Memory), and cold objects in SSD.

Blocks and Files: Is there a role for storage class memory in a CXL memory pool?

Yiftach Shoolman: Yes, the CXL standard supports DRAM memory and NAND flash memory like Intels Persistent Memory. And its up to the infrastructure providers to decide the ratio between the different memory technologies that are (or will be) available for the users.

Blocks and Files: Will CXL memory pooling be more relevant to customers of hyperscale cloud providers or enterprises?

Yiftach Shoolman: I believe we are still in the early stages of adoption. That said, and theoretically speaking, enterprises have more flexibility to decide about the type of hardware they will use in their infrastructure. But, on the other hand, if the hyperscale cloud providers find CXL attractive, the adoption of this technology for mainstream use cases will be much faster.

Blocks and Files: How might such Redis customers differ in their use of CXL memory pooling? Will it just or mostly be the sheer size of the memory pool?

Yiftach Shoolman: Sizing is just one parameter. The others are the type of memory they would like to use with CXL. Is it regular DRAM, or is it slower but cheaper DRAM or Persistent Memory?

Blocks and Files: How could the data in Redis in a CXL memory pool be persisted and then protected?

Yiftach Shoolman: From the Redis perspective, CXL is just another pool of memory. Therefore each one of the Redis persistent mechanisms will continue to operate as if CXL were a regular DDR memory.

Blocks and Files: Are there other points relevant to Redis and CXL memory pooling?

Yiftach Shoolman: I believe the success of CXL memory pooling is mainly dependent on the adoption of the hyperscale cloud providers. Without it, CXL might be just a niche solution for specific use cases.

Hyperscaler adoption of CXL memory pooling could be a tipping point in Shoolmans thinking. Such large-scale adoption would encourage CXL hardware development and also facilitate cloud bursting of CXL memory-pooled applications by enterprises giving them access to potentially much larger memory pools than they could afford themselves.

A note about CXL and storage-class memory: Simon Thompson of Lenovo has written: We eagerly await the arrival of Compute Link Express (CXL) storage class systems!

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