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By Bloomberg

Google Inc.’s cloud service is unveiling a low-cost storage feature with fast speeds in a fresh challenge to market leader Amazon.com Inc.

The Nearline product lets customers buy storage for less- urgent files at a penny a gigabyte, less than the 2.6 cents for traditional storage, Google said Wednesday in a post. Under the new program, data takes about 3 seconds for response times -- compared with less than 1 second for the more expensive option.

The new service takes direct aim at Amazon’s low-cost “Glacier” storage product, which charges customers similar prices yet can make them wait for a couple of hours to access, according to Henry Baltazar, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. He said Amazon hasn’t been forced to compete much on price since the service was started as a replacement for tape-based storage in 2012.

Google, the world’s biggest search engine, is looking for new ways to lure customers to its cloud services that help companies easily access computing and data storage via the Internet. The market is led by Amazon, which had about 30 percent of the industry in the fourth quarter, compared with Google’s estimated 5 percent, according to Synergy Research Group.

“They’re trying to catch up with the other players,” Baltazar said. “They want to sell more.”