Hard Drive Limitations

[imwi1999]

Hello everybody, I'm new here and and in need of some advice. Maybe someone here might be able to help me out. I just ordered a Dell Optiplex 3080. It has a a 512Gb SSD and also a second 1TB 2.5 hard drive. What I want to do is remove the 2.5 hard drive and replace it with a 3.5 hard drive 8TB from Seagate or WD. I know I will need to change the hard drive caddy as well. What I'm being told by Dell is that I will not be able to use an 8TB hard drive because a 2TB is the maximum size of hard drive that can be used. Is this true? Or will I be able to use the 8TB? Any advise will be greatly appreciated. Dell gave me this link which talks about the hard drive limitations on page 19 and page 20.

 

[imwi1999]

I forgot to post the link on the hard drive limitation mentioned on page 19, and page 20

https://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/optiplex-3080-desktop_owners-manual6_en-us.pdf

 

[biggen]

They must be partitioning them as MBR instead of GPT. Or they just haven’t certified any larger than 2TB (although that link shows you can use a 4TB 5400rpm but only a 2TB 7200rpm) If it’s a new computer with a modern OS, then it will accept larger than 2TB. You don’t have to use their drives. It will be a lot cheaper if you don’t actually.

Is this going to be a desktop computer for general purpose or are you building it specifically for video recordings?

 

[imwi1999]

It's going to be used for video recording only with Blue Iris. It will also have Windows 10 as the OS. Do you think the 8Tb will work?

 

[SouthernYankee]

What is your processor ?

if you are running the OS and Blue Iris off the SSD. An 8TB drive should work for Video storage. The only limit would be if they did something in the BIOS.

It is recommend to use a WD purple drive for Surveillance video.

Advanced storage:
If you are using a complete disk for large video file storage (BVR) continuous recording, I recommend formatting the disk, with a windows cluster size of 1024K (1 Megabyte). This is a increase from the 4K default. This will reduce the physical number of disk write, decrease the disk fragmentation, speed up access.

 

[imwi1999]

SouthernYankee,
So just to be sure before I purchase the 8Tb hard drive you are saying that I will be able to remove the 2.5 1TB hard drive and replace it with a 3.5 8TB hard drive and everything should work even though Dell says there is a limitation of 2TB? Is this correct?

 

[IAmATeaf]

Would be very surprised if the 8Tb drive doesn’t work, what you’ve linked to is probably simply what has been tested/approved by Dell when that model was released and hasn’t subsequently been updated.

 

[imwi1999]

IAmATeaf
I was surprised when I read the what Dell posted. It never crossed my mind that there could be a hard drive size limitation. Hopefully they just havent updated there manual.

 

[Y2K38]

The manual you linked to says: Two SATA slots for 3.5-inch Hard-disk drive/2.5-inch Hard-disk drive, 1 SATA slot for slim Optical Disk Drive

So it should be able to hold two 3.5" drives, but it looks like it won't hold a standard 5.25" optical drive.

2TiB is a software limit that last existed with the 32-bit Version of Windows XP. There should no longer be any such issue.

It is not uncommon for a regular desktop hard drive to fail before 5 years of continuous operation, or around 50,000 hours. The fluid dynamic bearings lose their fluid. You can buy enterprise grade hard drives that are designed to operate longer. Or you can have the hard drive kept spun down and have a script that periodically moves the video data from the SSD over to the hard drive.

 

[imwi1999]

Hello everyone,
I just wanted to say thank you to everybody that replied to my question. I really do appriectate all the advice that was offered. Here is an update. I did get an 8TB hard drive and it is working perfect for me. It looks like Dell was wrong when they told me it wouldn't work.