Microsoft raises netbook hard drive cap

One of the limitations I’ve heard many, many times with netbooks is that Microsoft has restricted what they allow in low power computing devices (netbooks, for instance) in terms of hardware. Because they’re trying really hard to get rid of XP and get the public to buy into Vista, they’ve tried to limit the hardware for these devices and make the more fully featured Vista products more attractive. Whether they would take such a negative view is likely a different story, but it appears they’ve raised the limit.

So, first to jump on the raised limit of 160GB is MSI and, of course, Asus. MSI is going to be releasing a 160GB version of the MSI Wind U1000 netbook while you can expect a 160GB version of the Asus Eee PC 1000H. As a side note, I’m not sure how many versions of the Eee that’ll be, but I’m sure it’s more than 20.

Fun poking at Asus aside, this is a pretty nice move by Microsoft that may be enough to give the prospective netbook buyer a little more confidence that what they’re buying will be capable of doing what they need. While I’m not the biggest proponent of tons of storage in a portable, I know there are others who will look at the new limit and be satisfied.

The thing is, what do you put on one of these things that you really need that much space? I imagine you could be storing tons of music or videos, but it seems like an iPod would be better for music while an Archos might be better for video (or an iPod Touch if you only need to carry a few movies around). Still, I fully understand that my uses don’t fall in line with the rest of the world which is why an 8GB SSD is more than enough for me.

The rest of the world can rejoice at getting more hard drive space. Soon, anyway. Read more at DigiTimes.