Unlimited Google Drive for $12, without subscriptions, does not expire, access from any device, 100% personal and protection against hackers. This is how some of the sellers of Google Drive accounts with unlimited storage are promoted. But if we try to buy the maximum amount of storage in Google it limits us to 30 TB and it costs nothing more and nothing less than $361 per month . So how on earth does someone offer unlimited storage on Google Drive by paying you $12 one time?
As you may have imagined, here’s a trick. It’s true, you can buy one of these accounts and generally no one is going to scam you, you will receive unlimited storage on Google Drive. You just have to send them your name, a Gmail address and pay whatever they ask for. Normally the prices revolve around $12, although investigating a little one finds accounts for up to $2.41, also for $60.20. In return you have access to a Google Drive where you can upload hundreds and hundreds of TB, yes, terabytes. But as tempting as it sounds, it’s not the best of ideas.
The lawful methods to have unlimited Google Drive
To understand how to get these unlimited accounts in Google Drive we first have to understand what are the “legal” options to get them . Google offers a series of extra services that are not always intended for the common user, but rather for professional or academic environments for example. There are basically two ways that Google Drive storage is unlimited.
The first option is Google for Education, the Google platform for universities and educational environments allows users who register with an educational account to have unlimited access to Google Drive. These educational accounts are linked to the university or academic organization to which the user belongs, the typical accounts [email protected] that are given to each student. If the university or educational environment has an agreement with Google, the user will have unlimited storage on Google Drive. But of course, you must be a student to enjoy it and it will end as soon as you finish or leave your studies.
For the second option, you don’t have to go back to college to have unlimited Google Drive, but you do have to pay monthly. This is GSuite, the platform for business environments that allows you to create Google accounts but with a custom domain. These accounts are offered with access to both Gmail, Calendar, Drive or Calendar for example as well as other services more dedicated to professionals such as Currents. GSuite customers also have better support guaranteed by Google.
GSuite however is not free like Google for Education. It costs $5.63 per month per user (it is understood that being a company more than one user will be added) in your Basic plan. For $11.27 you can access the Business version and for $27.69 the Enterprise version. The main differences are in the information security and control features that are given. A higher plan, more encryption and data management options.
And what about unlimited Google Drive in GSuite ? Basic accounts are limited to 30 GB per user while Business and Enterprise accounts are unlimited in Drive if there are more than 5 users in the group, if not 5 users are limited to 1 TB per user. In short, you need to create a GSuite account (you need a domain for that, which is purchased separately) and pay $56.34 per month (5 Business accounts at $11.27 each) to have unlimited Google Drive for you and four more users. Of course it is cheaper than the normal method at $361 per month.
Getting a slice of GSuite and Google for Education
Unlimited Google Drive accounts sold online effectively take advantage of these Google systems to sell you unlimited Google Drive accounts at paltry prices. Let’s see how they do it again starting with Google Education and then moving on to GSuite.
In Google Education it is simple and you can do it yourself without having to pay anyone to do it for you. For this method you “just” have to get an education account without being a student. As is always the case with the Internet, there are tutorials and tutorials to do it and fool, say a South Dakota university, into thinking you are one of their students. Then you simply log into Google Drive with the .edu.com account and you’re done. Whoever sells unlimited accounts on Google Drive taking advantage of this method does exactly that, so it is not at all strange that the account they give you does not correspond to your name but rather is something like Sophie Miller. But hey, unlimited Google Drive.
Finally we have the unlimited accounts that do not go for Google for Education. These are the most popular because they inspire a little more confidence in shoppers by allowing them to use whatever Gmail they want, even their personal one that they have used for years. If we have seen that in Gsuite you have to pay a minimum of $11.27 per month per user … how do they manage to give it to you “forever” by paying only $12 (to put an example price)? The answer is in Team Drive.
Team Drive is a feature of GSuite (and actually Google for Education as well) that allows customers to create a kind of shared spaces to store and share files between the people who are part of that Team Drive. These shared spaces of Team Drive have the particularity, in addition to being unlimited, of allowing you to also add people who are not part of the GSuite, that is, your Gmail account if you buy one of those accounts for $12..
Therefore, the one who sells the unlimited Google Drive accounts all he has to do is create a new Team Drive whenever someone buys an account from him. When creating this Team Drive, add the buyer’s account and he leaves the Team Drive, in this way the buyer becomes the administrator of the Team Drive. A Team Drive with infinite storage for himself, in exchange for possibly $12 or even less if one knows how to search the Internet.
What are the consequences of using an unlimited Google Drive purchased online
A Google Drive account for $12 is effectively the cheapest way to get unlimited storage in the cloud. However, it carries significant risks that must be taken into account. Some of them:
- The account can be closed at any time. If it is from Google for Education sooner or later it will be closed by the university, even faster if they detect an unusual storage by a “student”. If it is through GSuite, the moment they stop paying for that GSuite, the Team Drive closes. They can also be closed at any time if Google detects the fraud. In short, nothing can assure you that that account that you have bought from a stranger online will be there forever or until you leave it. And if they close it, you will have no one to complain or complain to, even worse if you have important data stored there.
- What about privacy? The Google cloud is encrypted and private, yes. However, here someone is giving you access to that Team Drive and it is the administrator who created it . As much as leaving a Team Drive no longer has access to the content … it is still the person who has paid Google and responsible for the data that is stored. If you’re going to do it, at least don’t keep things private and encrypt everything uploaded.
- There are limits. Although the one who sells the account does not tell you and although there is no space limit, each Team Drive is limited to 400,000 files, which seems silly but fills up sooner than you think with documents and app files for example.
- Personal data to strangers. It is what we are delivering when buying the unlimited Google Drive account, even more so if we do it with our personal Gmail.
- It is not a legal method. As simple as that, that should be the most important thing to consider.
So yes, the ad “Unlimited Google Drive for $12 , no subscriptions, does not expire, access from any device, 100% personal and protection against hackers” is not deceiving you, but it does not tell you the whole truth either. In addition to everything they offer you, they also offer you the risk of losing all your data uploaded to Google Drive from one day to the next or the risk of strangers accessing that information. A matter of which each one decides if it compensates him or not. The question that arises, who and for what do you need unlimited space in the cloud?
