does Dimension 8300 support 3TB hard drive

[Kevlina]

Hello friends, I am having a dell dimension 8300. It has got 500Gb capacity of hard drive, and currently there is only 2Gb space left. There are many more files that are pending to be stored in the hard disk, but due to less disk space I am unable to do that. So I have decided to upgrade the hard drive from 500GB to 3 TB, but I am not sure whether the motherboard/Bios of the system will support the 3TB hard drive. Is it possible to upgrade the hard drive upto 3TB. Please help me with your suggestions.

[Yitzchak909]

I can understand that 500GB hard drive is very less for the as compared to 3 TB hard drive. The only problem that I see, is with its older motherboard that is equipped with the NVidia chipset along with Windows Vista operating system. It was the first SATA driver that came with Windows Vista, has some problem formatting 1TB drives. Since then Nvidia has released new drivers which is very much compatible with the large capacity Hard drives. You can go for 3TB hard drive with windows XP operating system. Best of Luck.

[pddaugusto]

If you are willing to use 64 bit operating system in your Dimension 8300, then I doubt about its processor compatibility. Since Dimension 8300 is one of the oldest model, I don’t think that the installed processor will support the 64 bit operating system. Most of the processor manufactured at that time were incompatible with 64 bit OS. As per my opinion, you should try to find out the device drivers for the operating system that you are willing to use. If your processor is good enough to support, then you can go for 3 TB hard drive.

[Howitzer]

Assuming your processor to be fine, you can choose to upgrade your 500 Gb hard disk to 3TB hard disk with Windows Vista 64 bit or Windows 7 operating system. Only these tow operating system has the ability to understand the GUID partitioning table. Even if you cant boot from the drive in the absence of UEFI, you can format the drive and write data to it. So if you are sure about the processors compatibility with 64 bit operating system then you can go for 3TB hard drive.

[samar69]

Check if the Dimension 8300 motherboard supports the 3TB hard drive. If the motherboard or the processors support this hard drive up gradation then only you opt to install it otherwise you will be just wasting money. Dimension 8300 with 3TB hard drive easily supports Windows Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit operating system. I am not sure about Windows XP.

[Kevlina]

Hi guys, many many thanks for sparing your valuable time in answering my questions. Since I was planning to replace the 500GB hard drive with 3 TB, I was not sure whether my decision was correct or not. After gaining idea about the processors and motherboard of my Dimension 8300, I finally changed the old hard drive with 3 TB capacity hard drive. I was also confused about the operating system that would run the system without any problem. Now my system is running with windows 7 without any issue. Thanks again.