
64 GB Surface Pro will only have 23 GB free - rkudeshi
http://www.marco.org/2013/01/29/not-really-64gb
======
gfodor
Posters here comparing it to traditional "space inflation" on drives are
missing the point. The difference here is the magnitude. On the box you are
told you have 64GB and you end up having only a third of that to use. There's
a fuzzy line somewhere and it really feels like this is on the wrong side of
it.

Also, if you look at it in terms of dollars and cents, Apple prices their
iPads more or less based upon storage so you're looking at a situation where
consumers are legitimately making different decisions due to this problem. In
other words, a 32GB iPad and a 64GB surface pro are comparable in capabilities
whereas a 64gb iPad provides much more storage than the surface. The
investment Apple made in reducing the footprint of the OS is basically not
being taken into account in pricing.

~~~
cooldeal
>On the box you are told you have 64GB

And, inside the box, lo behold, is a 64GB hard disk.

Edit: The Nexus 4 8GB only has 5GB of free storage and has no means of
extending the storage though a MicroSD or anything else.

~~~
munificent
When you buy a pickup truck, they tell you how much load it can haul _in
addition to the weight of the truck itself_. They don't say, "Sorry, by
'three-ton capacity' we really meant 'one-ton' because the truck weighs two."

~~~
ChuckMcM
But they also tell you it has a 350HP motor and don't say how much of that
energy is needed to run the power steering, the AC, and just push through the
inefficiencies of the transmission system. They will tell you its towing
capacity but they won't say that the capacity includes gross vehicle weight,
so if you put a quarter ton of supplies in the truck bed you have to remove a
quarter ton from the 'towing capacity.'

There are numbers and there are numbers right?

~~~
nasalgoat
Actually, horsepower is rated in SAE net numbers, which includes a full
accessory load.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#SAE_net_power>

~~~
tedunangst
Some accessories, not all. And specifically not the transmission. They are not
quoting you horsepower at the wheels, which is the number you would actually
care most about.

~~~
LarrySDonald
If you're saying we should aspire to be as honest as the car industry, could
we perhaps aim a little higher and aim for perhaps as honest as the
nutritional supplement industry or the mafia?

~~~
danudey
'This is a natural health product, and by that we mean that we don't want to
tell you that the nutritional value of our so-called Vitamin Water is actually
no better than drinking a soft drink.'

------
ebbv
Anyone defending this is being disingenuous.

Having ~66% of the storage already used out of the box is nuts and most people
would be rightly annoyed and frustrated to find this out after buying one.

The correct thing for Microsoft to have done in this situation is NOT release
a 64GB model, if they were unable to free up more space.

~~~
rescripting
Thank you. There is a strong HN bias in this discussion, as a lot of people
are throwing their arms up and saying "of course! Software takes up memory!"

For me it's about average customer experience. An average customer with 50GB
of music would likely purchase 64GB Surface without hesitation. Coming home
and discovering it only fits half their collection crosses a (fuzzy) but very
real line from acceptable loss to false advertising. They've made a large
sacrifice they didn't know they were making when they purchased it.

If this actually was considered false advertising and manufacturers had to
advertise usable space instead of HD space, wouldn't that encourage
competition? Who cares if the numbers are ugly, I'd be able to evaluate
storage as a metric for purchase much more honestly. If something has a 64GB
hard drive and only 23GB are available, the number 64 means literally nothing
to the average consumer.

~~~
calciphus
It is a computer. It's sold as a computer. It runs REAL. WINDOWS. It is not an
iPad.

When I buy a computer, the OS takes up some of the space, despite what size
the storage lists.

MS disclosed this BEFORE anyone purchased the system.

Where's the complaint?

~~~
skriticos2
Maybe I'd buy it if Windows would be the only thing around..

But I'm comparing it to my system (Ubuntu). The kernel takes about 70 MB and
the entire system (including LibreOffice, Firefox and a basic apps) fits on a
CD (including live environment). That's about 700 MB.

With a full set of development tools and a good selection of applications I
come to around 4 GB. That's a number I can comprehend.

Now Windows 7/8 comes into arena somewhere around 16-17 GB on a clean install.
This includes the base system, a shell, some tiny utility apps and a Browser.
End of list.

WTF?

~~~
daeken
> The kernel takes about 70 MB and the entire system (including LibreOffice,
> Firefox and a basic apps) fits on a CD (including live environment). That's
> about 700 MB.

Heavily compressed, yes. In actuality, it's more like 5GB, considering all the
redundancy inherent in these sorts of binaries.

Regardless, Windows libraries alone come to 10GB (between system32, syswow64,
and winsxs), because unlike an Ubuntu LiveCD, they aren't shipping just the
libraries for the applications on the disc, but a massive, massive set of base
APIs, various different versions, etc. This is the cost of legacy
compatibility.

------
monkeyfacebag
Regarding FTC action, it's worth noting that MS's page on the Surface Pro
([http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with-
windows-...](http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with-
windows-8-pro/home)) includes this small print: _System software uses
significant storage space; your storage capacity will be less._ I freely admit
ignorance of the law but to a layman it seems like they've covered themselves
pretty well here. I would be curious to know what impact this would have on
potential FTC action.

Further, I wonder how easily the "recovery partition" can be disabled and how
much space a user could recover. How much is OS and how much is "recovery
partition"?

~~~
uptown
It's baffling to me why they wouldn't just make the "recovery" partition a
download or put it on a USB drive to begin with.

~~~
dangrossman
It's already a costly device, and a large USB drive in every box would've
added even more. You can make your own bootable USB drive and delete the
recovery partition if you want that space back, as the article said.

~~~
ars
Wait, so you are saying that microsoft would rather waste the costly device
inside the tablet? If not for the recovery area they could use a smaller drive
after all.

It's better to spend the money on a cheap external device instead of an
expensive internal one.

------
jinushaun
Anyone running Windows instances on EC2 will tell you that a 30 GB EBS
partition only gives you around 10 GB of usable space. Windows takes up a lot
of space (15 GB for 32-bit and 20 GB for 64-bit) even before apps get
involved.

I remember when the original iPhone debuted, I was completely SHOCKED that
Apple was able to reduce the footprint of OS X so dramatically. A 8 GB phone
still gave you 6.5 GB of free space. Then with the release of Snow Leopard,
Apple more than halved the size of the space required to install OS X.

~~~
nightski
It is not that Microsoft can't shrink the size of Windows. In fact that is
exactly what they did with Windows RT. The problem is on the Surface Pro
product they are including compatibility with full Win32 and have to supply
all the extra cruft that entails. So people want to run all the native apps
like Photoshop, but then complain when it takes too much space :P

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Windows RT supports Win32, you just can't execute any non-whitelisted binary.
Windows RT has Notepad, Calculator, Explorer. All Win32 apps.

~~~
TsiCClawOfLight
AFAIK WinRT isn't windows. It's a Metro-Style ARM OS with Windows Branding.

~~~
kyberias
Well, how do you define "Windows"? Windows RT (not WinRT!) is ARM based
Windows that can only run "Metro-Style" apps. With the exception of Office
that comes preinstalled on Surface RT. It still has some familiar features
like the desktop, command prompt, Explorer, like normal Windows OS but you
can't install any desktop software.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
So it's like using Windows without the benefit of the solitary advantage of
actually using Windows.

------
ChuckMcM
I tend to find these sorts of arguments silly. They are silly because the tech
industry trains people about the specsmanship game early on, generally people
learn the game after buying one, or at most two technology products.

The game is simple, there will be associated with a device a numerically
significant value. It may be the "version" number, the "memory" number, the
"speed" number, the "users" number, but its a number. And two or more
apparently identical devices will obey the rule that the bigger numbers are
the "better" devices and the smaller numbers are the "less good" devices.

There are two rules that seem to be true in this game;

1) The numbers for the same manufacture will determine which is the better
version of the product.

2) When competitors use the same "sort" of numbers, the numbers will be set up
to have you compare the products that the competitors want you compare, not
necessarily equivalent products.

When Tegra 3 tablets came out and "number of cores" became a thing, Apple
started counting everything they could as a core. With storage people use the
biggest number they can, with 100GB disk drives really having 95 x 2^20 bytes
of storage in them. But hey, 100 sounds better than 95 and 'G' means a billion
right? Right!

In the case of storage the 'base' foot print is fixed, so its 64% of a 64G
drive, and 35% of a 128GB drive, and 17% of a 256G drive etc etc etc.

Sure its amazing how 'fat' the base OS is on a Surface pro, but since a 256GB
SSD today costs the same as an 8GB SSD cost when Windows XP was in vogue (and
fits in a smaller footprint if you use mSATA what does it matter?

If it is extremely bad then it means there is room for disruption, a
lightweight OS that does all of that and gives you more of the storage. But
call out the feds? (the FTC call for action in Marco's post) really?

~~~
danilocampos
I read your comment here with ever-growing puzzlement.

The storage spec _matters_. It's the only spec that truly makes a day-to-day
difference in the lives of most users, since it provides an upper bound on the
portability of their data.

The less storage you have, the fewer varieties of "complete" libraries of your
content you can carry around. Less storage means making tradeoffs like not
having your whole music library when you travel, since you really need space
for movies on the plane ride. Not having all your photos, because you need
room for some games you feel like playing.

Storage space matters every single day. Getting short-changed on it kinda
sucks.

~~~
ChuckMcM
So how many phones, computers, ipods, laptops, etc have you bought? How many
OS upgrades have you gone through?

My point is not that storage matters, or doesn't matter, of course it does. My
point is that everyone who has bought something with storage has experienced
the "comes with X amount of storage (note Y is available for users)" verbiage.
And Microsoft doesn't go out of the way any more than any other company at
"hiding" that information from you. Neither does Apple, neither does Google.

So you read the box/advertisement/review and you gloss over the "storage"
number to find the "available storage" number and you see if that will meet
your needs, and if not you go to the next higher unit of storage.

I totally get that the _first_ time you buy a technology product you might
miss that, especially if none of your friends are technology users, but you
also probably missed it the first time you bought a car and noted that the
mileage values on the window didn't really match up with what you were seeing.
Or after you cut the bone out of that 10 lb Ham you bought and only had 6 lbs
of Ham left over.

It seems like faux outrage to me.

Now had Marco gone the other way, public ridicule that it takes 43 freaking
Gigabytes to provide a web browser and some apps. Hey I'm all down with that.
I mean seriously, I have a multi-user time sharing system for the PDP-8 that
runs in 43K words, basically one millionth the space and it includes a FORTRAN
compiler.

But that the box says one thing and the actual value to the customer is less
than that? Not exactly shocking. YMMV :-)

~~~
Zirro
"So how many phones, computers, ipods, laptops, etc have you bought?"

I have bought plenty of devices and never have I had any of them present me
with only 36% of the advertised storage space.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That's great, was that accidental or intentional? Have you ever had the
experience where you shopped for a device and checked to see how much storage
was available? And then adjusted your buying preference based on the answer to
that question?

It seems that a lot of reviews of devices, be they ultrabooks or laptops or
tablets or phone, often have a comment in the discussion about storage about
"what is available to the user" Have you ever read a review where they
mentioned that?

I'm not arguing that its "fine" that Microsoft only leaves 35% of a 64GB SSD
to the user, I'm suggesting that you, Zirro, and perhaps lots of other people,
will either look at a review or a description, seek out the available space
number and pause and say "Hmm, I think I'll pass." (or if you really must have
a Surface Pro, and you want about 64GB of space get the 128GB model, and gripe
righteously about how bloated that seems relative to other situations.

~~~
overcyn
> seek out the available space number

Do you yourself personally do this? Do you actively seek out the available
disk space when purchasing a new laptop? I think you are fooling yourself if
you think even 2% of people do this when buying a new computer. Namely because
its rarely if ever in spec sheet.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Yes I do, I think everyone I know does this, but I can't speak for them. These
days I shop a lot online but when I wanted to see what the windows 8 "load"
was I went over to Fry's opened up explorer on their laptop and right clicked
on Properties to see how much space was available vs equipped. (I ended up
getting a Win7P laptop but I had done that too with Win7). Opening up the
'software' center in control panel you can scroll down and see how much space
each package is using. I also took my current Debian/Ubuntu mashup distro and
ran through the apt database to see how much I would need in a second
partition to co-boot it and windows, and then compared prices for the stuff
equipped with my required size drive (given that) and the smallest available
drive. Ended up buying the smallest available (120GB) pulling it and putting
in a 500GB drive, and selling the 120GB drive for a net cost about 10% more
than the cheaper drive.

Now I certainly don't expect anyone else to be that thorough, but my wife
always researches available space and was very disappointed in the Nexus 7
which hit her price point at 8GB but didn't leave enough space for her stuff
(and of course no SD card slot which finesses the discussion).

But we can anecdote all we want and not make a lot of progress here. If you
believe that you should be able to use every byte of space that is advertised
on the box, I'm not going to be able to dissuade you. If you accept that the
"actual" space is going to be less than the "advertised" space how do you
gauge the risk when you buy? Do you just make assumptions about how much of
the advertised space will be available? Do you have some sort of internal
metric? 90% good, 10% bad or something like that? Do you ever check that
metric pre-purchase?

~~~
overcyn
> If you accept that the "actual" space is going to be less than the
> "advertised" space how do you gauge the risk when you buy?

It's not even something I consider, because I've generally assumed that disk
capacities are relatively comparable between manufacturers. So I base it on my
current space and whether or not I need more.

I don't think its unreasonable to expect that a consumer should be able to
look at the specifications for 2 different products and come away with a
decent idea of their capabilities. Or at the very least, not be completely
misled.

------
ajg1977
When I installed Windows 8 a few weeks ago, the 64-bit install was about 20GB
so where the hell is the other 21GB going?

Is the recovery partition literally a mirror image of the default install?
That sounds ridiculous because the thing is basically a computer so could have
a USB-restore, but I don't see how they get to 40GB+ otherwise.

<facetious>21GB of trials and time-limited software? </facetious>

~~~
dangrossman
Plausible: 20GB for Windows, 10GB for recovery, 4GB for the hibernation file
(has to match RAM size), leaving 6GB for the swap file, system restore points
and preinstalled software.

------
Jare
Reminds me of the common shock when an european travels to North America and
finds out that restaurant listed prices do not include taxes nor (massive in
comparison) tips.

It's all storage and it's a valid measure, especially if you consider that
perhaps some stuff can be uninstalled to make more room. In practice, whoever
cares about the exact amount of free space will find out, and whoever doesn't
will just use the numbers to label same-kind devices as 'bigger' and
'smaller'. Comparing numbers from different types of devices is as meaningful
as comparing version numbers from competing software products.

~~~
epmatsw
But the average consumer doesn't think like that. They see a 64gb iPad and a
64gb Surface. To most people, that's like a 3 meter rope and a 3 meter cable.
They're the same measurements, and they "should" be the same.

~~~
Jare
If the average consumer does not understand the difference between an iPad and
a Surface Pro, then the misguided GB comparison is the least of their
problems.

------
zyb09
Wow, Microsoft definitely deserves some kind of award for this. Shipping a
tablet, with own hardware design no less, with a 41GB OS is certainly an
achievement not every company can accomplish. (sorry I'm just baffled how you
can fill up 41GB)

~~~
scholia
It has a 20GB restore partition....

~~~
talmir
That is insane.

I cant help but think that a better option would have been to offer a
"recovery usb stick" for extra 50 bucks which would contain the recovery data
and save the extra space for the user to make the device more attractive to
the buyer.

~~~
scholia
It's not insane, it's a rational marketing decision. Users buy on the headline
price, and price plus $50 would be much less attractive. People who want to
move the recovery partition to their own choice of "recovery usb stick" can do
so.

------
rmrfrmrf
Wow.

Anyone who actively refuses to buy an Apple or Android tablet in favor of one
of these overpriced monstrosities is 100% cutting off their nose to spite
their face. I just can't even begin to fathom why Microsoft would go out of
their way to cater to such an infinitesimal group of people who feel that a
laptop is not portable enough, yet need the full functionality of god-knows-
what program that probably doesn't even work properly with Windows 8.

~~~
edtechdev
Well we know there are hundreds of millions of people who think a laptop is
not portable enough anymore - look at all the ipad and android tablet sales.

They just want something that's as portable as an ipad, but can run windows
software like Office, Photoshop, etc. These windows tablets also mostly have
active Wacom digitizer screens for real stylus support, and include Microsoft
OneNote, which is a full-featured note taking program that is nice for
students. This has been the kicker, we want the tablet form factor, but we
want to use productivity tools (which mostly depend on having a mouse,
keyboard, and/or stylus).

Unfortunately, the windows tablets are overpriced, and lower cost Windows RT
tablets can't run standard Windows software, and the more powerful tablets
like Surface Pro with an i5/i7 processor need a noisy and hot fan, AND the
design of Windows 8 is confusing to virtually everyone who is familiar with
Windows 7 or older.

My ideal would be a tablet with detachable keyboard like an Asus Transformer
but that can run Ubuntu (actually, you can install Ubuntu on an Asus
Transformer, but it is too slow). The Asus Vivotab TF810C has the clovertrail
processor which apparently isn't going to support linux, and the Asus
Transformer Book is a heavier beast with a fan due to the i7 processor.

------
antidaily
Luckily there are only 20 GB worth of apps in the Windows Store.

~~~
wmf
Some people also store data on their tablets. Like videos.

------
absconditus
For comparison, I have a 64 GB iPad (most recent generation) with a few
gigabytes of apps and content right now. I have 53.8 GB available.

~~~
edtechdev
For comparison, Windows uses up about 20 gigs, as does OS X on a Macbook Air
with SSD drive. The difference is windows also has a) recovery partition b)
hibernate file c) the typical crapware that comes with every windows computer

This has got to be one of Marco's finest trolls so far this year

~~~
gannonburgett
Actually, including the OS and the pre-installed apps, OSX on a MBA with a SSD
takes up just under 10GB.

Also: "The difference is windows also has a) recovery partition b) hibernate
file c) the typical crapware that comes with every windows computer"

You just proved why it's a disaster out of the gate. "Typical crapware"
especially. The entire comment section is one of the finest trolls so far this
year.

------
baddox
Does Microsoft disclose the usable space on their devices before purchase? If
so, then I really don't see the problem. The device has a 64GB flash chip, and
that's what the advertising says. All devices use some portion of their
advertised space out of the box, so if you want to draw an arbitrary line and
save customers 15 seconds of research before buying their expensive electronic
device, I guess that's your prerogative.

------
eumenides1
Why don't they just sell it as 20 gigs?

By promising 64 gb, they are just asking for trouble. Nobody is going to buy
it (the lie and product).

It's that or lower the foot print of the OS.

~~~
rosser
Because if they sold it as a 20 gbyte unit, but priced it as a 64 gbyte unit,
they'd get called out for that instead. Damned if you do; damned if you don't.

~~~
nextparadigms
It's not the user's problem that the OS takes up that much space. The user is
already paying for the license. He shouldn't have to pay twice (that 40 GB of
SSD space is pretty expensive).

~~~
bcoates
This is the second place in this thread you've said this, I don't understand
what you could possibly mean.

Do you think Microsoft could somehow throw the space in "for free"? How could
you even tell?

------
denzil_correa
The best line of the article

    
    
        If those numbers don’t sound as good, or the 
        manufacturers don’t leave themselves any room for OS-
        update expansion without changing the names of their 
        products mid-cycle, that’s their problem to solve, not 
        ours.
    

The argument my Marco is simple really - walk the talk.

------
martin-adams
While I get that Windows + pre-installed apps + recovery partition takes up
space. When I saw that only 23GB is left after a 64GB capacity, I was shocked.

Compare this to iOS or Android and you'll find it's going against my
expectation. I doubt I'm alone. 23GB is not a lot of space these days if you
plan to use it for something serious.

~~~
cooldeal
Why would you compare Windows 8 Pro with Android or iOS and not OS X or even
Ubuntu?

~~~
wmf
Because it's a tablet. A "no compromise" tablet.

~~~
scholia
A "no compromise" tablet that also includes a full PC. Basically, a MacBook
Air and an iPad in one device.

~~~
rayiner
Except without the all crucial real trackpad and keyboard.

~~~
scholia
It's assumed you'll get the Type Cover, which has a very usable real keyboard
and a real touchpad. Plus, you also have a real touch screen as well.

Yes, quite expensive by Windows PC standards, but a terrific package. You
should try one for three months or so.

~~~
rayiner
It didn't take me three months to realize that the touch cover made for a
shitty keyboard, the touchpad was microscopic, and the kickstand made the
whole thing unusable for a lot of "precariously perched" use cases (seated on
the couch, seated on the train or subway).

If it's a good computer, you'll like it immediately in the store. If it takes
three months to get used to the weird form factor, Microsoft will never sell
any of them.

~~~
scholia
Not really. However, since you're operating on prejudice, there's no point in
wasting rational arguments on you.

~~~
rayiner
"I used the product in the store and didn't like it" isn't "operating on
prejudice." It's how people make purchasing decisions.

------
leviathant
The way people are reacting to this reminds me of the initial reaction to Macs
ditching the floppy drive or the optical drive.

Surface has a fully functional USB port, and Windows 8 supports a bunch of
cloud-driven integration out of the box. More and more, I've been moving my
important documents online (with the exception of raw audio & video files,
which are still too large to bother hosting online right now) If you want more
storage, slap an external drive on your Surface.

That said, I can't argue that advertising it as a 64gb tablet is any more
sensible than Ticketmaster advertising $15 tickets, only to charge you $10 in
handling fees when you actually make the purchase. It's not straightforward,
and comes off as misleading.

------
shocks
But I can't help but thing... What kind of operating system is FORTY ONE
GIGABYTES?! My C:\Windows is 20GB, that seems excessive already, and I know
for a fact it was originally much smaller. What the hell are Microsoft putting
on these things?!

------
coloneltcb
The point about how you market size is the least interesting part of this.

My question is why the the hell is Microsoft shipping such a pig of a mobile
OS?

~~~
scholia
It's not a pig of a mobile OS, it's a full copy of Windows 8. You know, that's
like Mac OS X <feline animal>. And it doesn't fit on a ROM chip.

~~~
BlackAura
Mac OS 10.8 takes up something like 13GB in total, including swap space. The
recovery partition on a new Mac is tiny, containing just enough to download
the install image over WiFi.

Granted, not entirely comparable - 10.8 doesn't contain nearly as much legacy
cruft as Windows does, but that's still a far cry from the 40GB taken up by
Windows on the Surface Pro. A 64GB Macbook Air would have something like 45GB
useable.

Windows also tends to grow over time in ways that Mac OS doesn't, because
Windows was built around the idea that you have ample hard drive space
available. So you have restore points, backups of replaced system files from
updates, caching of installed update packages and MSI packages, multiple
versions of nearly every system library just in case some application really
really needs one specific version... They all provide useful functionality,
but were designed around having huge hard drives, where Windows taking up 50GB
wouldn't be a big deal. Same thing with the separate swap and hibernate files
- potentially more reliable but still chews through disk space that you might
not be able to spare on a small SSD.

~~~
scholia
As I said, it's not a pig of a mobile OS, it's a full copy of Windows 8. You
know, that's like Mac OS X <feline animal>. And it doesn't fit on a ROM chip.

------
mixmastamyk
Not surprised. Windows in general is extremely inefficient with disk space. It
keeps multiple copies of every patch and system dll under the Windows folder
for defensive purposes. Recent releases have added "restore points", winsxs,
csc, and SoftwareDistribution\downloads, to the original dllcache.

I'm not joking when I say you can easily free up 10GB+ on an installation that
has been around a while; 100GB if a service pack has been installed. And it
only grows unless you actively manage it.

This is the shitty design these NT based tablets are facing. It could probably
be solved by moving all this crap out of the system folder and into its own
folder with an expiration date.

------
jug6ernaut
I want so badly to like MS. But stuff like this is making this goal almost
impossible.

~~~
DavidBradbury
I know! How dare an OS and its applications take up space on the hard drive!
This is certainly unprecedented and has never happened in the history of PC's
and laptops.

~~~
jug6ernaut
Thank you for your intelligent post. Hey look now we are both being sarcastic.

Selling a device advertised as 64GB of storage with only 20GB~ free IS a
problem. Its horribly misleading.

~~~
DavidBradbury
There is nothing misleading about it. There is 64GB of storage, and if you
want to use more of the available space, remove some of the software it comes
with.

If you wish for intelligent discussion, how about we discuss a more
interesting topic. How much free space should be expected? Should a non-techy
device such as the Surface sacrifice space in order to make their user
experience better? Where do you draw the line?

~~~
jug6ernaut
One should expect how ever much is advertised. In this case 64GB's of storage
is advertised implying there is 64GB's of storage accessible to the user.

Of course we have NEVER had the full space advertised by storage devices
accessible for a multitude of reasons. We mainly go along with this because
its advertising. But thats my point here, the advertising is getting out of
hand, when you get a device and you have less then 1/2 of the advertised space
that SHOULD be a problem.

On a side note the Surface and much less Surface PRO are no longer "techy"
devices? I don't necessarily agree with that, but that and your statement are
both opinions.

~~~
baddox
> One should expect how ever much is advertised.

No, one shouldn't, because that hasn't been true of any comparable electronic
device or computer in the last 5 years. You confirm this in your next
paragraph, so I don't understand why you included the first paragraph.

It's not "just advertising." There truly is a 64GB chip in the device.

------
smackfu
The difference between Microsoft and Apple: Apple would never have had the 64
GB one, because of this issue. They would just have the bigger drive, and
charge more money for it.

~~~
MBCook
If you sell a version of your product that is going to leave a bad taste in
the mouth of a large percentage of your users... is it worth selling?

Do you remember when digital cameras were first starting to use flash memory?
You could buy models that didn't have card slots but only included a few MB of
flash. Nothing says quality like a new expensive digital camera that can only
take less than 20 pictures. I bet a lot of people were unhappy about that.

Apple tends to be very opinionated, but they usually don't release near
crippled products. They're willing to forgo the low-end sales to ensure a
better experience.

This is just an odd decision. Why not ship with 96 GB and put some of that
(say the 20GB system restore partition and the hibernate file) on a 32 GB
partition that isn't shown to the user.

This seems like a very poor choice on Microsoft's part. Some consumers won't
care, some consumers will get feel ripped off, no consumers seem better off.

------
bcoates
Ignoring the dumb FTC idea, the 64GB Surface Pro does seem like an oddly
pointless device. I can't imagine people shelling out for this relatively
expensive PC would find it a good deal to save 10% off the price to have a
cripplingly limited storage budget, or to use up the SDXC slot on a drive
almost as expensive as the price differential.

For MS, I can't imagine it'll be worth the bad PR to be able to advertise a
$899 starting price instead of $999.

------
pwthornton
The moral of this story is not to buy the 64 GB Surface Pro. Hopefully
Microsoft will get the message and either reduce the footprint of the OS or
only ship 128 GB and above Surface Pros.

There is a perfect market solution to this. Don't buy it. Now that I know that
the OS takes up an insane amount of space, I have no interest in this product.

------
_mgr
Another issue this raises is the likely hood of most to all free space being
used up and the impact this will have on the life and performance of the SSD
and the Surface Pro is a whole.

Do we know the specs of the SSD? What controller type it's using? TRIM
support?

------
nonamegiven
My car has 75 cubic units of space. But 50 units of that are taken up by the
engine, dashboard, heater, steering wheel, door panels, insulation matting,
seats, spare tire, etc. So there's only 25 cubic units left for people and
carrying.

But sure, 75 cubic units.

------
smackfu
The odd thing is that Windows 8 minimum disk requirements are only 20 GB.
[http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/system-
requirem...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/system-requirements)

(It's also interesting to see Marco try to nuance this post. All the Mac
pundits have been posting it as a "haha, stupid Microsoft" which is probably
why it came to his attention, but he tried to write his blog post in a generic
way, that this is a problem with all of these devices.)

~~~
npsimons
_The odd thing is that Windows 8 minimum disk requirements are only 20 GB_

( _spitting coffee across room_ ) _Only_ 20GB!? I can get a full Linux
install, including desktop, development environment, graphics editors, office
suites, etc, etc, etc for less space than that! It's sad that people have come
to accept "only 20GB" as "not that bad". This reeks to me of the issues MS had
trying to shoehorn windows on to netbooks, and just not getting it.

~~~
smackfu
The only reason this is even a story is because of Flash drives with lower
capacities. On the desktop, I literally don't care about the tiny fraction of
my 3 TB drive the OS is taking up.

~~~
npsimons
Yes, precisely: Microsoft has never had an issue with releasing a product that
eats all the RAM, CPU cycles and hard drive space it could get. Every new
release of a Microsoft product had not just the pains of learning a new layout
and dealing with the bugs and security holes, but also going through the
upgrade cycle, yet again, because Microsoft doesn't seem to care (or be
capable) of writing efficient software. Only now that storage on desktops and
laptops has given us a glut of capacity do we not care.

But in the mobile space, where resources are obviously more limited, Microsoft
is a joke: they are so laughably far behind the open source solutions (and
Apple) designed to run stably, smoothly and without upgrades for years
(decades, even), that we really shouldn't be surprised. 20GB on a desktop or
laptop drive where 1000GB has been the norm for a while? Sure, no problem. But
even getting Windows 7 down to 17GB so I can get it to fit (along with a few
other essentials) on a 60GB SSD for my work development machine was a PITA
that shouldn't be necessary. There's no excuse, even if we are "used to it."

~~~
scholia
Partly it's one of the pains of backwards compatibility. Unofrtunately
Microsoft cannot, like Apple, just throw people who use its old stuff under a
bus....

------
gambiting
But the Surface Pro DOES have 64GB of memory,right? If it does,then your
argument is invalid. It might need to ue 41GB for the system,but the name is
absolutely correct.

~~~
nextparadigms
It's misleading.

------
trotsky
So basically marco assumes a standard that punishes bundling? A windows 8
tablet that comes bundled with a full office suite needs to advertise itself
as 5-10GB smaller than the identically configured but less functional tablet
without the bundle? Using 66% of shipped free space on a 64GB tablet is
clearly wrong, but you can say that without coming up with some synthetic
standard that nobody will ever follow.

~~~
gillianseed
From what I've read Surface Pro does _not_ come with office bundled, do you
have any information that says it does?

------
blisterpeanuts
So... when someone ports Linux to the Surface Pro, there will probably be 60
gigs free!

Then maybe I'd buy one (used, refurbished).

------
JVIDEL
So recovery takes at least 12GB of those 64? I would like the option to
transfer it to a thumbdrive or an extHDD and get all that space back.

Still that leaves about 29GB for the windows install, and that TBH is a bit
insane, 29 for an OS? even if it comes with Office thats just too much.

------
gtirloni
In a couple of years this will be unimportant as SSD drives grow in size (and
not in price). We've seen this over and over with every new storage media.

Microsoft might want to do some trimming there but I wouldn't spent all my
time on that.

------
astangl
As Bill Gates would say, 23 GB should be enough for anybody.

------
rome
I'm running Win8 Pro on my laptop. The OS weighs in at about 25GB which means
the rest of the bloat comes from the pre-installed apps. Can they be removed?

------
hussong
It might be possible to make a fully functional tablet with 4 GB worth of
software, not 40 GB. What in the world do they put on that thing?

~~~
Blara
A full version of Windows 8 Pro and backup partition of the same (which, from
what I understand, you can put on an external drive and have an extra ~20GB)

------
gonzalolarralde
There's another thing we are missing here: WTF is Microsoft putting in a 30GB
operating system????? Really, come on. 30 gigs of WHAT?

~~~
scholia
The thing you're missing is any semblance of fact.

------
ww520
I wonder how much space is taken up by the pagefile. In modern computer with
lots of memory, the pagefile can get pretty big.

------
tjdetwiler
I think it's a shady thing for MS to do, but the last thing we need is for the
Government to regulate something like this.

------
isarat
iOS isn't MacOS but Windows 8 is just another Windows! The inefficient disk
space usage is quite infamous with Windows. They managed to fit the physical
memory by memory combining but failed how to manage the files on storage.

Don't be surprised it's Microsoft!

They did physical memory compression but forgot how to optimize it well on the
dedicated storage.

------
bane
In other news, water is wet, operating systems take up lots of disk space, and
the sun is hot.

------
nodata
Microsoft meet buyer's remorse! Go Microsoft!

------
duncankeys
add an sd card then? simple solution 64gb now or 128gb soon, up to 2tb
eventually. Cant do that with an ipad

------
beedogs
Why did Microsoft even bother?

This is a joke.

------
robertwalsh0
Non substantive comment: "That's some bullshit."

~~~
agscala
You already know why I'm downvoting you.

------
cooldeal
It's being advertised as coming with 64GB of storage, not with "64GB free".
That's a huge difference.

You can wipe the hard disk, install Damn Small Linux, and get ~64GB of free
storage.

The FTC should consider taking action? What? Why does Marco seem to lose all
sense of perspective when it's Apple vs. competition?

~~~
grecy
Consider these similar topics:

A "5 seater" car, where some critical part of the car occupies 3 seats so you
only have 2 for people.

A box of 100 staples, where 64 are used to hold the box together, so you only
get to use 36

A 50 inch plasma TV, where the bezel accounted for 32 inches of that.

A car advertised as getting 30MPG, but when you put seats, seat belts, a
heater, air conditioning and a radio in there it only gets 20 MPG

It feels a lot like getting ripped off to me.

Obviously we're power users, so we're willing to dive into this and understand
that when you buy a 64GB device, you don't get that much storage. Do you think
the general public understands that?

~~~
smackfu
How about buying vegetables by weight in the grocery store, but that weight
includes inedible stuff. That's a real thing that happens.

~~~
achompas
Can't think of a vegetable that is only one-third edible.

~~~
smackfu
Oh, I got one! Not a vegetable, but lobster is sold by the pound, but it's
only 20% edible meat.

~~~
achompas
Ha yeah, good one! Bone-in meat is probably bad too (more than 20% edible, but
still...)

------
Toshio
Says microsoft in their announcement:

> "Surface Pro has a USB 3.0 port for connectivity with almost limitless
> storage options, including external hard drives and USB flash drives"

Translation: "For the sake of portability ..."

> "Customers can also free up additional storage space by creating a backup
> bootable USB and deleting the recovery partition"

Translation: "... and for the sake of simplicity ..."

> "Surface also comes pre-loaded with SkyDrive, allowing you to store up to
> 7GB of content in the cloud for free"

Translation: "... and because we've always poo-pooed Google when it came to
the usefulness of their Chromebooks without an Internet connection ..."

"... we are proud to present to you ... surface pro!!!"

------
largesse
This is actually institutional for Microsoft. Years ago, when I was developing
using Visual Studio and it came on a set of CDs, I saw an article claiming
that installing it and MSDN (their offline help system of tech notes since the
dawn of time) made you feel like Godzilla had shit on your hard drive.

It took up an outrageous amount of storage. The same was true for shrink-
wrapped Office.

~~~
illuminate
I think the difference here is that the OS and full versions of Office are
installed with no preconfiguration, whereas the complaints you're referring to
were about installing the full version of VS and MSDN including all sample
code, lengthy documents, help and test binaries would necessarily take up a
large amount of space back then.

------
recoiledsnake
Original source is here[1] instead of the blogspam by Marco.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/29/3929110/surface-pro-
disk-s...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/29/3929110/surface-pro-disk-space-
windows-8)

------
helloamar
Think Microsoft has gone lazy to come up with a great OS, in other words they
are not interested in making one like that, so sad

