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Software Uses Almost 1/2 the Storage On 32GB Surface Tablet
First time accepted submitter jigamo writes "Microsoft's newly released Surface tablets are available in 32 and 64 GB capacities. The company has disclosed how much of that space is available to the user. After taking into account Windows RT, Microsoft Office, built-in apps, and Windows recovery tools, nearly 13 GB of the available space is eliminated from user accessible storage. Microsoft's recommendations for adding additional capacity are to use cloud storage, a memory card, or a USB storage device."
A Tablet full of Microsoft, whats not to love?
13GB is not bad. I made the mistake of getting a 40gb SSD for my Windows 7 partition. I recently upgraded it to a 120GB one, much better.
It seems ridiculous to me that 13GB is taken by the OS and built-in software.
How does that compare to iOS? And to be fair, how does that compare to iOS+Pages+Keynote+Numbers?
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Ok, so you're accounting for what is likely to be the largest single software install (as in storage) available for the unit outside of the OS. What is it without the Office package?
And don't forget to say that cloud storage is no good in Canada, where uncapped internet doesn't really exist, and mobile plans are absolute garbage.
Yes, it's so bad that it's worth mentioning twice.
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It's supposed to be a freakin tablet.
Which is a freakin' computer running a freakin' operating system.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
There are options if you want unlimited Internet in Canada. Fewer or greater depending on where you live. They do tend not to be the mainstream carriers though. Fortunately, I happen to live in a small area serviced by a cable provider that offers unlimited.
What did you expect? Of course to be fair, if you install a *full* version of the average desktop linux ( or bsd ) distribution you get tons of stuff by default too. Most of it you dont want.
But still, for a tablet product they should have gone out of their way not to just toss crap onto it. Space is not cheap, like it is on a desktop.
Idiots.
Calling other people idiots doesn't make them so. As for your comparison with a Linux Desktop with a healthy selection of Apps I am running at 7GB after many months. I suspect a fresh install would require much less. Ubuntu for example https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements suggests 5GB.
It accepts a MicroSD, so who cares? Contrary to the market-segmentation-via-soldered-in-SSD strategy of certain other companies, the fact is, the stuff is very cheap - $1 per gigabyte.
Well, it's actually kind of cool that the user can pop in a memory card. I guess I have gotten a little to used to iProducts that don't allow such niceties.
So there is a 16GB Surface! :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'd rather take a device with 13gb free space and a memory card slot, rather than one with 28gb free and no way to expand.
Other misc recommendations
REMEMBER, TABLETS ARE LOW MAINTENANCE! (compared to PC's)
With Love,
Microsoft
PS: You really did not think things would change THAT much!
is like 4GB alone. They need to get rid of the bloat if they are serious about mobile/tablet.
It is great that the surface has a micro-sd card, but it suffers the same issues that the android platform has, which is that you can NOT install apps on the micro-sd card. For comparison, both IOS 6 and Jelly Bean are around 2gb in size.
You misspelled "apple land" there. Microsoft handily includes a microSD port with its tablets.
You seem too used to the fact that in apple tablets and phones, whatever memory you buy the device with, you're stuck with. This is not the case here.
5GB is a recovery partition.
3GB is lost* due to 32GB drive = ~32,000,000,000 bytes. System reports that as 29GiB.
* The advertised local disk size is shown using the decimal system, while Windows displays the disk size using the binary system. As a result, 1 GB (in decimal) appears as about 0.93 GB (in binary). The storage capacity is the same, it's just shown differently depending on the how you measure a GB (decimal or binary).
And how much is it to add an additional 32gb or 64gb to your iPad if you hit your storage limit?
You swap some data out to external storage, just as Microsoft recommends.
$20 or $49 like the Surface or more?
You can't put apps onto external media on the Surface either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's supposed to be a freakin tablet.
Which is a freakin' computer running a freakin' operating system.
With freakin' lasers attached to their heads!
This may not sound convincing to the nerds who know their way around a computer, but the Surface is a Windows machine, and an iPad is an iPad. The concept of storage device, drive letter, file location is not really required on an iPad. I suppose you can say you need to know whether it is on the iPad or on the Cloud, but that's different from which drive to access to find your movie file, or which memory stick to use (did you label it?). Sure, I'd prefer a device with cheap expandability, but the iPad has sacrificed in a lot of areas to be as simple as possible, and for a vast many people that is a good thing.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
This was from my 4th computer:
http://fatphil.org/images/im_floppier.jpg
Next!
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
You can only use that space on the SD card for data. You cannot use it to store apps.
Say the Surface's memory is evenly divided into 16 GB for the operating system and included applications and 16 GB for third-party applications, with all music and movies on a microSD card. What kind of application collection takes up 16 GB, other than a bunch of hardcore games? I thought hardcore games weren't ported to Windows RT, and most apps and casual games were far smaller than that.
The Surface comes partitioned with a 3.5GB recovery partition, which can fully reset the device including drivers, OS updates, full volume encryption + losing the recovery key, and people running amok with Admin permissions (assuming they don't mess with the recovery volume itself). The iPad, last I checked, still required the use of a real PC if something goes drastically wrong and it needs resetting. It can handle typical reset scenarios just fine, but can't be used to downgrade (or so I'm told; that may be wrong). I don't know if the iPad even supports installable drivers, either (although on the Surface RT, they must be signed by MS so hopefully not *too* much harm would occur from them).
The Surface also comes with the standard suite of Windows admin tools, including the Management Console and the Disk Management snap-in for it. You can modify the partitions if you want to. You could even back up the recovery volume to a USB storage device or NAS (the device supports booting from USB, not sure about NAS) and then remove the recovery partition and extend the main volume to fill its space. You can also mount a removable storage device, such as a microSD card or USB Mass Storage volume, into the root filesystem. Can an iPad do anything like that?
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Well since music and movies can all be obtained through the cloud
The cloud is useless if it can't be reached because A. you have the Wi-Fi-only version and are away from home and open hotspots, B. you have no cellular data subscription, or C. you've already burned through your data plan this month.
Or of course just keep some media on external network devices
Which portable external network devices are you talking about?
or SD cards
I guess the Surface can, but I wasn't aware the iPad could play movies and the like from an SD card.
Having to buy and carry around an add-on is functionally the same to you? And only "slightly" less convenient?
The more misleading drivel I read from you the more convinced I become that you are Slashdot's best troll ever; Poe's law in action. It is solid platform for a Slashdot troll.
I'm not sure why pointing out that having to purchase a $30 add-on that hangs out of a device (in other words cannot be left in all the time) makes me an "android folk". Android is not even in the discussion so you can relax- the boogeyman isn't out to get you here.
I am terribly sorry if the truth offends you; a hard life is in store for you I fear.
Not quite sure what that really means. You seeming like a troll doesn't hurt my feelings at all.
It's a little hard to understanding[sic*] how pointing out a fact is misleading.
I'm fairly certain you know exactly why it is misleading but I will spell it out anyway. The Surface has an SD slot. I could plug an extra N gigabytes of additional space into it and forget about it. The iPad does not. The iPad apparently has an add-on called a "camera connection kit" made to load pictures which appears to also allow loading other media as well. This is not plug in and forget. This is: "hope you remembered to bring it when you feel the urge to use it". Most people do not even know this exists; fewer would use it.
I know somebody poked fun at an iPad's lack of expandable storage but it was not a personal attack against you. You are not an iPad. You know what people mean when they talk about expandable storage. You know the iPad does not have it in the same sense. Nonchalantly claiming the iPad has expandable storage is a lie of omission.
You might be OK misleading people even in jest; I am not. I want people to know how things work so they can intelligently decide between devices.
You say that but your post history shows the opposite. You clearly aim to mislead people when you say the iPad supports expandable storage. You are always sure to fully articulate any shortcoming in another product:
No you cannot just forget about it. You can't put applications on it. You have to remember to save media to it separately.
You cannot do that on an iPad so this is not a pro/con list between the two devices. Neither do this. Nor does it change the fact that once my SD card is in the device I can forget about it.
You always overlook the shortcomings of any Apple implementation:
You swap some data out to external storage, just as Microsoft recommends.
You already know for a fact Microsoft does not recommend you buy a dongle so you can temporarily plug in an SD card. If it was the other way around and Microsoft's tablet required a dongle we both know you would be proclaiming how terrible of an experience that is.
The only time such expansion really matters is for something like a long trip with spotty access to data connections, so in the end that difference does not really matter much.
Just plain false. Cell data is expensive (and only available on a small percentage of tablets) and wifi is in no way ubiquitous enough in most of the world to make "the cloud" a viable alternative to local storage.
I post facts; you post facts but omit the whole story. ... It's hardly misleading when it does in fact do exactly that.
When I buy an iPad can I plug in my SD card? No? You mean you omitted the part about needing to buy an additional dongle?
You keep insisting you cannot do something that you can; why would you state something so plainly false? It would reduce trust of your views in the anyone reading your posts.
Can you or can you not install apps to an SD card on an iPad? Without Jailbreaking (we'll assume for a second the user knows they need a "camera connection kit" and does not think it is a ridiculous requirement).
You are wrong. Cell data is not that expensive; but more importantly in everyday life WiFi is pervasive.
Cell data is expensive. Denying that is asinine. Wifi is not pervasive in any useful measure. It may almost always be present but it is not very helpful to have an encrypted AP. Yes I have wifi at home and at work but both of those places my tablet is really only going to be used as a remote control. Where are the number one spots media on a tablet is useful? Probably trains, buses, bus stops, malls. Some of those will have wifi, some of them will have poor quality wifi and most of them will have no wifi. No matter what remote storage has degraded availability over local.
I am not quite sure exactly what you are going on about "well off enough to buy a tablet" and their "networking environment". They really have nothing to do with each other. Large metropolitan areas occasionally have good wifi availability. More often than not, though, a few key points have wifi access here and there. I imagine you will find a small percentage of the united states has open wifi availability. You may only travel between work and your home but many people "well off enough to buy a tablet" probably leave their little city bubble and would like to listen to music while doing it.
In any case I am more reassured now that you are a troll. Definitely one of the best (possibly the very best) I've seen on Slashdot so congrats on that. What concerns me is how often people agree with your most likely (hopefully) trolls. Troll on.