Google perhaps unintentionally gave users an early Christmas present as Gmail zoomed past 6 gigabytes of storage yesterday. It was was just a couple of months ago that users were starting to get restless after Gmail's "Infinity +1" storage algorithm seemed to slow to a crawl after surpassing 2.5 GB - now these couple months later it has grown by 3.5 GB to push it ahead of Microsoft's recently implemented 5 GB limit and it is now only trailing Yahoo and AIM Mail's unlimited plans.

Also interesting is that Gmail seemingly hit the 6 GB plateau about a week and a half ahead of schedule (going by the last algorithm update, it should have hit the mark on January 4th) - could the algorithm be speeding up again? Hard to know as the counter has temporarily been replaced by a Happy Holidays message from Google.

With 2008 poised to bring us the mythical Google Drive - online storage - it'll be interesting to see how this affects Gmail. If you sign up for the service will Gmail then be upgraded to its storage capacity? That seems to be the case with Google's current upgraded storage plan for its apps.

It's also worth noting that just 2 months ago it would have cost you $20 a year to get the same 6 GB of storage Gmail now has for free - that $20 now gets you an upgrade to 10 GB. Right after the new storage algorithm was put in place that means you would have been getting about 7 gigabytes a month for your $20 (as Gmail almost immediately shot up to 3 GB) - now however you are only getting 4 gigabytes a month for your $20. Is Google going to update the pricing scheme again? 4 gigabytes for $20 seems like a pretty bad deal once again.


[UPDATE]: A Haochi of Googlified notes in the comments, 6 GB is technically 6144 MB, so Google could still be on pace to hit that number on January 4th.

[UPDATE 2]: Earlier today Gmail "officially" passed 6 GB - 6144 MB, they stand right now at 6165MB on December 30th, so it looks like they are definitely ahead of the schedule laid out in their last algorithm update.