New tests indicate that the Surface Pro actually has more available space

Feb 8, 2013 09:32 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft last week confirmed that the 128 GB Surface with Windows 8 Pro will come with only 83 GB of available space, while the 64 GB model will provide approximately 23 GB of usable space.

Well, it appears that Microsoft has actually provided us with the wrong space figures, according to some tests performed by Ed Bott of ZDNet.

The top-of-the-range Surface Pro with 128 GB offers users a total of 89.7 GB of free space, while the entry-level version has approximately 30 GB of storage.

Microsoft apparently used some pre-production tablets to provide the initial figures, while the final devices prepared to hit the market tomorrow come with more free space.

The company has already confirmed that the recovery image was the one that eats up quite a lot of space on the Surface Pro, so Bott found out that removing it brings back no less than 7.81 GB of extra space.

Panos Panay, the man in charge with the Surface division at Microsoft, confirmed in an AMA session on Reddit that initial storage figures weren’t quite accurate and that the final versions of the tablet came with 6 or 7 GB of additional free space.

“We designed Surface Pro (and the allocation of disk space on our systems) to have the power of full Windows 8, the ability to have a simplified and fast upgrade to full Office and the confidence of a recovery image already available on your device,” Panay said.

“Beyond the flexibility and confidence this provides, we also include an ability to extend your storage via microSDXC, USB 3.0 and SkyDrive (including 7GB of free storage). Initial reports out regarding available disk space were conservative (eg. 23GB available on 64GB and 83GB available on the 128GB system), however our final production units are coming in with ~6-7GB additional free space.”

Microsoft is yet to update the Surface storage FAQ page, so more information is very likely to be provided tomorrow when the device goes on sale.