I’ve gotten used to the idea that all of my hard drives should be 1TB or more. I get a little freaked out when the available free space on my hard drives drops below 500GB. So, you’ll understand why I might be skeptical about trying to run Windows 8 on a PC with a mere 128GB of internal storage (or even 64GB), and why I am investing Day 13 of the 30 Days with Surface Pro series to figuring out how to expand that storage capacity.
Honestly, it works fine. I’m still not sure I could work with a 64GB Surface Pro, but 128GB is sufficient for my needs–at least the basic ones. And, there are a variety of options available for expanding storage beyond that 128GB when necessary.
From a business and productivity perspective, the small local storage is actually a good thing. Microsoft has designed Windows 8 and the Surface Pro to integrate seamlessly with SkyDrive cloud storage. Businesses using SharePoint can use SkyDrive Pro for access as well. This is a great solution because it expands the storage capacity, and does it in a way that gives the user access to the data from any virtually any Web-enabled device, and gives the IT admin power to manage and protect sensitive data at the same time. The data is stored centrally where it can be monitored and backed up rather than being tied to a specific device which can be lost or stolen.
SkyDrive isn’t the only solution, though. SkyDrive isn’t even the only cloud-based data storage and file sharing solution available. Read Surface Pro, Day 13: Dealing with limited storage capacity for more about how Windows 8 works with just 128GB of storage, and what your options are for working beyond that.
