Surface disk space FAQ | Hacker News Reader

Surface disk space FAQ

microsoft.com

45 pointsmtgx60 comments

This is the same B.S. that happened with the Xbox 360 hard drives.

In 2006 Microsoft sold a 20GB hard drive for $120 (which could have bought at least a non-branded 100 GB hard drive)

When you used it with the 360, the hard drive would only report 14 GB because 6GB were used for the OS.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911593

FYI Apple's operating system takes up 1GB, so this is relevant because a 32GB Surface has a much usable storage as a 16GB iPad (source: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-surface-storage-siz...)

> 6GB were used for the OS.

Not really the same though, since the XBox OS fully resides in Flash/ROM/however-you-want-to—call-it-internal-storage 16MB (megabytes!) filesystem, and you can readily boot without the hard disk[0]. Those 6GB were merely "set aside".

The price is a complete rip-off though.

[0] this may have changed since NXE, but the OS is still extremely small by today's standards, e.g the last one is 113MB: http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/system-updates/system...

As of November 19, 2008 the Xbox OS actually requires additional disk space. It's why they discontinued the Xbox 360 Arcade console package since it didn't come with a hard drive.
"While previous system updates have been stored on internal memory, the NXE was the first to require a storage device—at least a 128 MB memory card or a hard drive." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#New_Xbox_Experience

I must say though, they do get a lot of bonus points for honestly laying out exactly where everything went and how much space each component takes up. On top of that, they even gave storage improvement options aren't simply giant advertisement for their cloud services. Color me impressed with MS's upfront honesty.

Not exactly "upfront honesty" when they didn't say this before they started advertising as a "32 GB tablet" knowing full well that what consumers will think is that they get 32 GB of storage for a $500 price.
They only did this now after others have already debunked their storage claim:
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/31/microsoft-surface-can-not...
Also shame on most tech reviewers who didn't even notice this in their reviews, or didn't want to say it.

I think you have unrealistic expectations. If you read an advertisement for a computer with a 250GB hard drive, do you really expect it all to be available space? I don't think anyone else does, so why would they think that in this case?

Not all of it, but I'd expect more than half of it to be available.

I would expect the vast majority of it to be free space.
If you bought a laptop with a 250GB hard drive, and found when you booted it that ~125GB were used by the OS, would you be okay with that? Especially when the HD storage was a prominently advertised feature?

yes, considering the prevailing (up until Surface arrived) advertisements for pads talked about space available, not total space.

So when Microsoft were talking about having a consistent experience between tablet and PC, I didn't think this was what they'd be thinking of. This reminds me of my current desktop, which I ran out of space on the SSD almost immediately and then spent an instructive half-hour cutting down swap space and getting rid of the hibernation file. Seems like the first thing to do on a Surface would be to find some way of freeing up that space.
I feel a bit mean poking fun at Microsoft now, but honestly, it amazes me that they'd think it was acceptable to take up half the hard drive of your tablet - especially given that storage space is one of the major metrics that mobile devices are sold on at the moment!

The microSD slot allows you to add up to 128GB of storage fairly cheaply to your Surface.
I don't see this as a big problem.

MS is great. Desktop-parts annoy tablet-fans. Tablet-parts annoy desktop-fans. Everyone is happy in the same way!¹
¹ Happy level could have negative values, if measured in bits.

Really?
Recovery tools on a TABLET?
What's the size of iPad firmware again? Around 1GB apparently
How much is the crud that Windows accumulated all this time?
I'm beginning to think all the 16-bit pieces of windows are still there (I mean, the part that compiled)
Talk about a monolithic mess

This sort of size is necessary to support a tablet which isn't hopelessly tethered to a PC. The iPad avoids a big recovery image by requiring you to restore it from your PC. You've offloaded this function onto an (arguably) more capable device. But how much external storage can you buy for the cost of a whole PC. For some users who don't create a lot of content, the Surface realistically could be their only device, and being able to restore it without a PC is a lot of convenience.

This is no longer the case with iCloud.
All of my 'iDevices' are now untethered from my computer. When I bought my iPhone 5 they actually made me wait for the iCloud restore to complete before I could leave the store.
Backed up my iPhone 4 before jumping the train to the Apple store. Walked in, purchased the new one, iCloud sync, walked out with virtually the same data I walked in with on a faster and prettier device =)

But can they restore from a problem state without a PC? I honestly don't know, but I suspect Apple's approach to a recovery partition is still 'Run iTunes' or 'Talk to a Genius'. Which is less good for, say, my grandma than me being able to restore from a hidden partition. User data can still be backed up to the cloud; that's probably a good thing generally.

" they actually made me wait for the iCloud backup to complete before I could leave the store."
Are you being positive about Apple devices or not. Because that statement could be taken two ways.

Same here. When my iPhone 5 arrived I basically turned it on, chose 'restore from iCloud backup', waited a few minutes, and presto: all my apps and their data, settings, text messages, address book, call log, etc, all transferred from my old 3GS.
I still had to sync all my music from iTunes though, but I don't see how the Surface would be able to do this without requiring to be 'tethered' (iTunes has WiFi sync) to a PC.

>I still had to sync all my music from iTunes though, but I don't see how the Surface would be able to do this without requiring to be 'tethered' (iTunes has WiFi sync) to a PC.
By storing your music in Skydrive, this removes the need to 'tether' to a PC

Restoring the firmware in DFU mode is not possible without a laptop. But, it's uncommon and I think you can let Geniuses at the Apple store do that for you.

Is this being touted as an Apple feature that Android retroactively stole 3 years in the past yet?

Downvoted. Nobody mentioned anything about Apple being first, merely that this feature exists and is useful.

I wish. Unfortunately the backup and restore situation was miserable three years ago and still is today.

"This sort of size is necessary to support a tablet which isn't hopelessly tethered to a PC."
Are you implying that iPad is hopelessly tethered to a PC? Have you used an iPad?
As of iOS 5, there are very few reasons that one would need to be "hopelessly tethered to a PC" in order to use their device. Backups, music and app purchases, and contact and calendar syncing are all completely untethered.
As for restoring firmware, in reality that's something something that an average user does extremely rarely, if at all. iOS has a "Reset All Content and Settings" feature which deletes everything off the device and reboots it into a completely fresh state. If somehow, an average computing user like my grandmother has managed to get her iPad to the point where it truly needs a restore, any Apple Store would be more than happy to assist her. In that scenario, what sense does it make to carry around a copy of the iOS 6 firmware on the tablet?

The only problem is, going to an apple store isn't an option for a lot of people where I live (Canada). When I travel, I bring my tablet, which does support USB host mode, but doesn't run iTunes. I know its a rare case, but its also incredibly frustrating when the answer to a problem is to drive three hours or mail your primary computing device away for a week.
Frankly storage is cheap, and Apple has made a business of overcharging for it. They advertise their lowest capacity at a reasonable price, but the upgrades are extortionate. If apple charged more reasonably, maybe we wouldn't be so afraid of using that storage to handle reasonable edge cases like this.

Microsoft's Surface isn't a tablet in the iPad sense of a device for casual content consumption; it seems intended to enable content creation and more formal business use. Comparing the two the way you are isn't very enlightening.

What's different about Microsoft Surface that suddenly allows it to create content rather than merely consume it? Wouldn't it make sense to give a content creating device more free space to store content?

It seems to me that the operating system is designed with the keyboard/cover combination in mind, and the operating system --- especially the upcoming Pro version --- has more of the capabilities of a desktop computer than are offered by iOS. (I'm frankly tempted by the device, but I don't see a huge argument for it over a laptop for my most common uses.) In short, it's not so much the device as its software that makes the difference.

What a fantastic time to live in, where we can describe 128 billion things with the adjective "only", and sniff derisively at them.

Well if you wanna go that route, a loaf of bread for dinner is 'only' trillions and trillions of atoms.

And a lot of those atoms are just air!

No they're not, they're empty space.

"Empty space" isn't made out of atoms. And yes, there's plenty of air in a loaf of bread.

There are lots of air atoms inside a loaf of bread.

Then it's a good thing Class 10 MicroSD cards are under $1/gig?

Yup.
Kinda felt like Google shot themselves in the foot by missing them out of their nexus tablets. The idea that it's a negative because people don't like managing what they use the space for... well it doesn't fly with me.

Yeah - they should at least have included read-only SD card reading, for media consumption. My dad currently does not know what tablet to buy because reportedly the Google devices are great, but they don't have the slot.

You can even get uhs-I (with around 30MB/s) for similar price

Well, at least you can plug a card in there.
Just out of curiosity, how is it on other tablets (ios, android). Is some portion of the marketed memory occupied at all times? If so how big is the percentage?

I've got a 16GB iPhone and it's listed as having approximately 13GB of usable (non-OS/firmware) space. The ipad is about the same percentage, I just haven't looked at it in a while.

64GB iPhone 5 here: 57.3GB usable storage (89.5% of advertised).

iOS and Androd only take 1 GB or less, and there's another 8% or so that comes from the conversion of 160,000 MB to 16 GB.

That tis not correct. It's much more than a gig.

Really?
http://www.phonearena.com/news/199-Google-Nexus-7-tablet-has...

Well at least they come right out with it and explain exactly why the free space is what it is.

While it's not news for a computing device to rely on ignorance in regards to marketing of specs, at what point does it cross the line from casually misleading to intentionally deceptive?

I know humor is frowned upon here, but it makes me think of the following: http://i.imgur.com/Rcu0C.jpg

Yes, but you can stick a 32 or 64GB SD card in it(or swap through many as needed) because it has an SD card slot. You can even put in USB flash drives since it has a full size powered USB port with hub support. Hell,you could connect a 2TB portable USB drive and it would work(at the expense of battery). Try doing that with an iPad or Nexus 7 or even the Nexus 10. Google's devices are supposed to be more open but I cannot understand why they want to force upsell you to the more expensive options to add additional storage by omitting MicroSD slots.

And get swimming-through-turd SD card speeds? No thanks.

Class 10 MicroSD can do 20MB/sec, that's not that bad.

The Surface Pro will probably have a SSD that can do over 10x that.
Random access speed is what matters for apps, and even tablet solid state storage are much faster than SD cards. The SD should be fine for audio and video though.

The point still remains that they advertised the tablet as being higher value, when it's not. You can get a Nexus 10 with 16 GB of storage and a much higher resolution than the Surface for $400.

The 'value' you speak of in tablets is not in the volume of space available but in the overall experience. I can't say I've ever heard a "real user" express how they wished they have more physical space on their tablet or smartphone. It's a nice line item on a spec sheet to hold over your competitors but how many users actually care?

>>[Storage size is] a nice line item on a spec sheet [...] but how many users actually care?
Ah, that is why there are never any buyers for more than the 16 GB iPads?
Oh, wait...
(Meta: Could these fan boy wars at least use some minimum quality arguments? :-( )

16 vs. 32GB is more important for the iPad because you're permanently stuck without recourse with that storage forever. Not so with the Surface. Somewhat ironic that someone who was complaining about argument quality missed that key point.

How fast are those memory cards?
Another argument you could use is that the Surface doesn't have so many apps to install anyway... :-)
Edit: I might add re quality of arguments -- I answered someone that claimed real users didn't bother about storage space, which is hardly honest.

You have never heard a "real user" (and remember, you and I are "real users" as well; you don't stop being a real user just because you are technically inclined) complain about having run out of space and having to clear off space? About not being able to fit all of their music, photos, videos onto their MP3 player, phone, or tablet?
I've certainly encountered that. And I can imagine people saying "hey, this has 32 GB of space, my current device only has 16, this will allow me to fit twice as much", without realizing that a full half of that space is not actually available.

You can easily drop in a SDXC card in the Surface if you need additional storage, unlike the other main alternatives like the iPad and Nexus tablets. You can load up any number of movies to take on a trip on microSD cards and swap them in and out. What do you do on the other tablets without the Microsd slot when you run out of storage?

>The point still remains that they advertised the tablet as being higher value, when it's not
Err, it is higher value, unless Apple and Google are doing false advertising as well by not advertizing by the free space.
>You can get a Nexus 10 with 16 GB of storage and a much higher resolution than the Surface for $400
Sure, but you lose the kickstand, MicroSD slot, full sized powered USB, Office RT, Touch and type cover compatibility.

Cool.
I can purchase additional stuff at my own expense for my brand new device, just so that it has the specs it was claimed to have in the first place!
Lucky me.

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