Yandex dominates the search market in Russia, garnering 60+% of all searches in the country. In Februrary, they launched new social features for search, nabbing Twitter access. And just last month, the company was added to the NASDAQ Internet Index. Although Yandex has been a big player locally for awhile, it’s clear that they are now becoming a bigger player in the global market.

Today, they’re taking another step with the unveiling of Yandex.Disk, a cloud service that offers 10 GB of free storage. Like any cloud service (Dropbox, SkyDrive, iCloud), any files that are uploaded to your locker are accessible from anywhere that’s internet-connected – across multiple devices.

“Yandex.Disk is a cloud service, a virtual folder that can be safely used for file storage. If your personal computer or laptop catches a virus or breaks down, your files will be safely stored on Yandex.Disk. Currently, Yandex.Disk is integrated with Yandex.Mail, and we have plans to link it with other services offered by Yandex,” says Anton Zabannykh, head of Personalized Services at Yandex.

Right now, Yandex.Disk is invitation only and only available in Russian. There is already an English site up, however, where they let us know that an English version is “coming soon.”

Search giants launching cloud storage services…where have I heard about that recently? Ah yes, those guys over at Google. They’re rumored to be prepping for the launch of their own such service pretty soon. Last week, Google Drive was spotted in the wild sporting 5 GB free storage. The latest reports set the release to occur this month, but the exact date is unknown.

But one thing is clear: the cloud storage market is beginning to get crowded, and Yandex just beat Google to the punch.