Google Investigating Google Drive Downtime [Update: Fix In Progress]

Google is looking into complaints that Google Drive is experiencing issues of downtime or extreme sluggishness today, with availability of the cloud-based storage system patchy in the US and abroad. Complaints around Drive access began in the early hours of the morning, though it's only within the past half hour or so that Google has acknowledged the problem. "We're investigating reports of an issue with Google Drive" the company confirmed on its service status page, promising to "provide more information shortly."

Exactly what the nature of the problem might be is unclear, and according to Google's status dashboard Drive is the only web service to be encountering issues today. However, there have been reports on Twitter that Gmail, Google Reader, Docs, and other services have also been sluggish in their responsiveness.

Drive has made headlines in recent days, after a new notetaking service intended to challenge Evernote and OneNote was spotted apparently prematurely public over the weekend. Google Keep was briefly available at a Drive sub-domain, though there's no official word from the company as to when – or even if – it will launch properly.

Meanwhile, Google continues to come under fire from Google Reader users, furious that their RSS aggregator will be shut down by July. Google's habit of juggling services and weeding out those it claims are the least popular has left some concerned that the products they currently rely on, such as Docs and Drive, may one day be shuttered should Google decide it is not getting the return on investment it requires.

Update: Google says that Drive "has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next 1 hours."