Google to triple storage space across services like Gmail, Drive

There is reason to cheer for regular users of Google services like Gmail, Google+, and Google Drive, as the company announced on Monday that it would triple the capacity of these services to store your personal files, rising from 5GB to 15GB.

Businesses using Google Apps will see their storage go up across Google Drive, Google+, and Gmail from 25GB to 30GB.

Google made the announcement just before the Google I/O Developers Conference begins this week. The changes will "roll out over the next couple of weeks," Google said in a blog post.

The new amount of storage space will give people who use Google services the most generous storage capacity of any player in the free online-storage game. A quick look at competitors shows that Dropbox currently starts free subscribers at 2GB, Microsoft SkyDrive users get 7GB, and Apple iCloud, Amazon Cloud Storage, and SugarSync offer 5GB for free.

The announcement follows a Google Drive update from last week that allows you to save files from the Web directly to Drive.

Analysts are wondering what payoff Google expects to get in return for the generous space addition. Some say it is possible that at the I/O conference, Google will reveal that Drive or Google+ will incorporate a more multimedia approach.

Others say it may be nothing more than a warning shot across the bow of Dropbox: you now get 15GB because Google can give you 15GB.