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Oh dear Microsoft. I know you’ve slapped a microSD slot on your tablets, unlike others, but seriously. Having just 84GB of usable space on a 128GB-rated tablet was bad enough, but reducing a 64GB Surface Pro to just 23GB of usable space is a complete joke. This is a full-blown Windows 8 PC for crying out loud. [The Verge]
"128GB" Microsoft Surface Pro Only Offers 83GB of Usable Space
Which One Has More Usable Space: the 128GB Surface Pro or the 128GB MacBook Air?
128Gb NAND Chips Promise SD Cards with Terabytes of Storage
This was already common knowledge as 20gb is required for the OS and 20gb is kept free so you can restart the pc…. Not hard to understand… Want to know a secret though?
If you plug in a 15 quid 64 gb card you get 64 gb extra memory
But Sam’s point (which I agree with) is that the 20GB shouldn’t be kept free – it’s a tablet, not a full blown laptop, with limited storage, and it should be treated as such.
It’s a full blown pro version though. I would had agreed totally if this was for the RT version.
I kind of understand where you’re coming from, but it’s not a full blown laptop, and 128 is too limited – besides, the recovery partition isn’t even necessary – they could just give you a 32GB memory stick with all the recovery information on that.
On that case my apologies *slaps myself*
I really thought the pro version is the same as Wndows 8 and on a lap-tablet instead of a desktop.
It is normal Win8, but recovery partitions aren’t necessary, in general.
I once shoved a single stem rose into a turd.
P.S. It was still a turd.
I bet the rose grows beautifully though
You will get slow down when running apps from the SD card.
True, considering this is a full blown Windows 8! Microsoft should be shipping them with 250 and 500GB though to be fair, this would made things lot easier and I would pay £700 for a hybrid full blown Windows 8 on a laptablet.
My point is, that I reckon the user accessible storage should be just that, user accessible. Fair enough the OS needs space, but either shove it on another separate partition, or don’t quote it as being 64GB.
Valid point.
a 128gb hard drive doesnt have 128 gb useable but is still quoted as such.
A comment above said something along the lines of using a memory stick for the recovery partition, but then wouldnt that circumnavigate the whole EUFI security features they have put in? Not to mention their may be specific changes to windows 8 installs that they dont want put on full blown pcs etc?
Agreed, I know manufacturers always say ’16GB’ when it’s really ’16GB minus the OS’, but this is taking the piss!
I know the OS is large, but it really needs to be even clearer here that that 128GB is largely not usable, not just crammed into tiny writing somewhere no can read it!
Do these have OEM licenses with them? If so, download your Win8 license, then kill the recovery partition.
*Win8 iso.
(Damn the lack of edit Giz!)
See replies to my comments below – seems a bit unsure whether you can shove the recovery onto a USB stick or not.
There was a discussion over this on the last post, but surely just re-installing Windows with no partitions on the SSD would eliminate this?
I know we shouldn’t have to do this to get a working computer, and it’s ridiculous from Microsoft to use recovery partitions in this post-PC era, but it should be fixable, at least?
You can’t do that, it uses Secure boot EFI, it will only boot if partitioned correctly.
Balls.
Ballmer!
MS actually officially say that on their site. They say you can add a 64gb SD card, and also use a USB drive to create a backup, hence removing the need for the recovery partition.
Thus, assuming you buy the SD card, the 64GB version can give you up to 107GB of storage, whereas the 128 version would give you 171GB. I presume you would only use the SD card for media/file storage, so the apps should still run quickly from the primary SSD.
Cheers
They have essentially made their product unpurchaseable. This is ludicrous. I was seriously considering buying one but this is just stupid. 23GB would last me about a day.
If you were seriously considering buying one; you’d buy an SD Card.
Apps will run like shite of an SD card, although I suppose an argument against that would be ‘who’s going to have more than 23 GB of apps on a tablet?’. But the flexibility would be nice.
SD Cards are for vids/music/docs. Not apps..
I know, just sayin’
Yes it makes complete sense to sell a product that actually requires you to purchase to extra items separately (microSD card and keyboard) to make it useable. I really find it funny how people try to defend things that can only considered negatives. There are of course positives to the Surface Pro, which is why I intended to buy one but, this negative is something that is pretty difficult to swallow.
I find it really funny how people attack others for defending things that they don’t consider negatives whilst throwing around ridiculous assertions such as the idea that the Surface is unusable without purchasing additional items separately.
Sure, sorry. Your right, missing two thirds of the possible disk space isn’t a negative.
At what point would it become a negative? 10GB free? 5GB? 0GB?
I tend to think more ‘glass half full’.
I’m getting a fully-featured desktop OS, a proper recovery partition and likely a good amount of pre-installed software.
And besides; if I wanted to…I could relocate the recovery partition to another storage device and claw back a good chunk of what’s ‘missing’ from the reported hard-disk size.
This product is an absolute omnishambles and has been from the moment they unveiled the thing.
Microshite have really out-shat themselves here!