Would 3 Tb Hard Drive work in Dell Precision T-7500 workstation ?

What BIOS version are you running? It looks like something funny is going on if it's only recognizing 2048 GB.

A 1.0TB HDD will yield about ~931GB of usable space.

A 2.0TB HDD will yield about ~1.82 TB of usable space.

A 3.0TB HDD will yield about ~2.7 TB of usable space (the 3TB drives really do vary a bunch from 2.65 up to 2.84).

If Windows is showing that the space on the 3.0TB drive is 2048GB then something is off. Update your BIOS and see if that makes a difference. You should be running A13. When the Dell splash screen comes up on first startup it will say at the very bottom of the screen what BIOS you are using. Or when you double click the BIOS executable it will say "Replace Version A12 with Version A13" or perhaps "Replace Version A13 with Version A13" if you are already running the latest version.

If you can't get that to work I'd try and update the firmware on the HDD. There are different brands of drives and I've not tried them all so if that won't work you could always get an external adapter.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Id=1&Description=raid+controller+card&x=0&y=0

That first card (620) works fine and is really cheap. You would plug the HDD into that card vs. the motherboard. It's pretty straight forward and will allow you to add a second large drive in the future.
 
Quote from WinstonTJ:

What BIOS version are you running? It looks like something funny is going on if it's only recognizing 2048 GB.

A 1.0TB HDD will yield about ~931GB of usable space.

A 2.0TB HDD will yield about ~1.82 TB of usable space.

A 3.0TB HDD will yield about ~2.7 TB of usable space (the 3TB drives really do vary a bunch from 2.65 up to 2.84).

If Windows is showing that the space on the 3.0TB drive is 2048GB then something is off. Update your BIOS and see if that makes a difference. You should be running A13. When the Dell splash screen comes up on first startup it will say at the very bottom of the screen what BIOS you are using. Or when you double click the BIOS executable it will say "Replace Version A12 with Version A13" or perhaps "Replace Version A13 with Version A13" if you are already running the latest version.

If you can't get that to work I'd try and update the firmware on the HDD. There are different brands of drives and I've not tried them all so if that won't work you could always get an external adapter.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Id=1&Description=raid+controller+card&x=0&y=0

That first card (620) works fine and is really cheap. You would plug the HDD into that card vs. the motherboard. It's pretty straight forward and will allow you to add a second large drive in the future.
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Hi WinstonTJ,

Thanks again for taking time. I really appreciate it.

My HDD is Western Digital Green Internal 3 TB.

I updated the BIOS from A12 to A13 but no help.

I also did some research & came across an article with a very simple solution that tells you to just install Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver V.10.1 OR Higher but I don’t know if it applies to T-7500 & I don’t have Raid at all.

It did solve this problem for many people in this article.

I also couldn’t find that Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver V. 10.1 OR Higher to download from Intel or net.

Here is the link.

http://www.servethehome.com/fix-746gb-3tb-hard-drive-issue/

Microsoft also addressed this problem as follows & I am not sure if they are talking about the same thing as RST.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581408

Incorrect Storage Driver Handling of Single-Disk Capacity Greater than 2TB

Microsoft has discovered that certain storage drivers do not fully support single-disk capacities greater than 2TB. The behavior of some drivers may include:

- Overflow of numerical capacity beyond 2TB, resulting in only able to address the remainder of the capacity beyond 2TB. For example, with a 3TB disk, the available capacity may be 1TB.

- Truncation of capacity beyond 2TB, resulting in a maximum of 2TB of addressable space. For example, with a 3TB disk, the available capacity may be 2TB.

- Storage device is not properly detected, and does not show up either in Device Manager or Disk Management.

Many storage controller manufacturers have updated drivers with support for capacities greater than 2TB available for download. Contact your storage controller manufacturer or OEM to determine support for single-disk capacities greater than 2TB, and if there are any available downloads to provide support.

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Then there is another solution provided by Seagate as in following link asking to use Seagate “ DiskWizard V.13 “ but I am not sure if I can use it for Western Digital HDD.

http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/beyond-2tb/

I think you are the expert & hopefully will find something above info to fix the problem.

Right now RST seems the easiest if it applies to T-7500.

Please let me know.

Thanks a Million
 
I just split a case of 3TB hard drives with a buddy. They are Seagate not WD (we went cheap) but when the drives arrive I'm happy to burn them in on my spare T7500. I can record (video) it as well. You just plug them in and they work. Not sure if a case is 24 or 30 drives but I'll have a bunch shortly (beer reference there)

If there is an issue I would call WD tech support. WD & Seagete are close competitors so I'm sure they would have a fix if you are experiencing a problom.
 
Hi WinstonTJ,

Thanks again.

T-7500 is a good machine but too technical for me. You are the expert because you have hands on experience with them.

Here is what happened.

I was connecting the HDD to it's one of the 4 SAS ports so it was showing only 2 TB.

Out of the 3 other SATA ports only one was tirned on & that had DWD-RW.

So I turned on other 2 SATA Ports & connected the new 3 TB HDD to it & it immediately detected it as 3 TB ( 2.79 ) HDD,

So everything is fine now.

I do once again want to thank you for taking time to give me all the support.
 
Glad you are all set! Didn't realize you were connecting it to a SAS port vs. SATA.

Don't forget to turn OFF the SATA port you aren't using or you will get that annoying error message during boot up each time :D .
 
I know this is an old thread but i am having trouble the T7500 seeing two (2) 5TB's sata drives. I picked it up cheap as a friend said it would make a great media server and i think he's right if it sees the entire drive - currently only see 2 TB on each on Win 7 Pro. I updated the BIOS to A16. I have the OS on a smaller 250 GB drive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Thank you for you analysis ... I make the same mistake and connect my 4To HDD to the SAS and not SATA ...
With your help I solve my problem ;-)
Best regards to all.
 
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For sure it will work , there are drives now which works on USB 3.0 and higher speeds for all your basic needs and much more if needed. Do you really understand something like that ? It will work with any machine as long as your ports are working there for SATA and other connections.
 
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