What is Shared Drive?
The Shared Drive in Google Drive is used to store, search, and access a team’s files. The files in Shared Drive belong to the group of users and not to an individual user.
If any of the members of Shared Drive leaves the team or organization, still that Shared Drive files are accessible to other members of that Shared Drive.
Shared Drive Features:
- Access all files and folders even if an employee leaves the organization
- When an employee leaves from the company and an admin deletes their account, their files remain in the drive
- Easy to Share Files
- All members of a shared drive can see the same content of the files. If anyone modified any file, that changes will reflect all members of the Shared Drive
- Add user groups easily
- A Google Group which has a more number of users can also be added to members by simply adding that Google Group mail id as a member
- Add external users to shared drives
- A user who does not belong to your organization can also be added as a shared drive member
- Accessible on any device
- Users can access the Shared Drive files on any device such as mobile, desktop, etc
Shared Drive Benefits:
- Easier Management by Using Access Levels.
- The owner of the shared drive can give permissions easily by specific roles to the members of the shared drive. Here, no need to give permissions to each file separately
- Reduce the Hassle When Employees Resign.
- If an employee resigns his/her job from the company, then he/she should transfer his/her My Drive’s Shared Files permissions before leaving the company. However, if he/she used Shared Drive instead of My Drive, then no need to give permission to shared drive files. In Shared Drive, the ownership of the files belongs to the company, if an employee leaves the organization
Shared Drive Limitations:
- Maximum Files.
- The maximum number of items that can be stored in a shared drive is 4,00,000 including files, folders, and shortcuts
- Maximum File Uploads Per Day.
- A user can upload files up to 750GB including both My Drive and Shared Drives. If a user exceeds the 750GB limit then it is not possible to upload any more files on that same day
- Maximum Members in a Shared Drive.
- We can add a maximum of 100 users in a single shared drive
- Folder Limits.
- The nested folder hierarchy on a shared drive is up to 20 levels. After 20 levels of nested folders, you will not be able to create a new folder. It is advisable to create multiple shared drives instead of creating more folders in a single shared drive
Google Workspace Editions with Shared Drive Support:
Shared Drive feature is only available in Google Workspace Business Standard or higher editions. Shared Drive is not supported in Starter edition plan.
| Google Workspace Editions | Shared Drive Support |
|---|---|
| Business Starter | No |
| Business Standard | Yes |
| Business Plus | Yes |
| Enterprise Essentials | Yes |
| Enterprise Standard | Yes |
| Enterprise Plus | Yes |
How to Create a Shared Drive
Read this blog to know the step-by-step instructions to set up a Google Shared Drive – https://www.bdrsuite.com/blog/how-to-set-up-a-google-shared-drive/
Backup and Recovery for Google Shared Drive
BDRSuite supports backup and recovery for Shared Drives in Google Workspace Organization.
“BDRSuite is a Comprehensive Backup & Disaster Recovery Software designed to protect data across Data Center/Private Cloud (VMware, Hyper-V, Windows, Linux, Applications & Databases), Public Cloud (AWS), SaaS (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace), and Endpoints (Windows, Mac)”.
Read this blog to learn how to backup and restore the files/folders in Shared Drive – https://www.bdrsuite.com/blog/bdrsuite-v5-5-0-new-feature-update-how-to-backup-restore-google-shared-drive/
Interested in exploring BDRSuite? Request a demo or Download a 30-day free trial here
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