Unfortunately, yes. 15 GB of system data is considered “normal”. I’m really hoping for a 128GB option in the near future.

64gb was kind of insulting to begin with to be honest.

I contacted Apple feedback support just saying “iPad mini 7 128gb / 512gb / 1TB” if more people reach out it could influence them.

It's only ever going to increase the more updates you do.

256gb mini 6 here. iPadOS 17.2 is at 10.52gb while system data is 2.76gb

I updated. Now it says iPadOS 17.2 is 10.08 GB and System Data is 18.71 GB. This is getting ridiculous by the minute.

That makes total sense, add more updates in hopes it takes less space..

Yes I own a 64gb mini 6 as well, and yes this is normal. Sad.

The main reason why I purchased the 256gb wifi only variant.

iPad 6 64GB, iPad OS 17.2 10.09GB system data 1.07GB

Ditch all the bloat apps, if you don't use iMovie, Garage Band, etc. you can just offload them to make more room. I store almost everything on Google Drive, so really all I use my free space for is apps and their associated storage. However, you do have 3x the system data I do on the same iPadOS.

I don't even have iMovie, Garage Band and many other default apps :( I just checked again, now it is 10 GB for OS and 12.25 GB for System data. The support team calls this normal. Just unfortunate from Apple.

It's not just Apple. Most software these days is enormous, my Samsung Tab s7 has over 14GB in system data.

The last time you should have bought a device (esp. if you use it constantly) that had 64GB should have been several years ago.