Inspiron 660 Support for 3TB SATA Drives

Hi Dexterl,

I could locate a 3TB hard drive for Inspiron 660, Check this link: http://bit.ly/12ovscG

The above link also mentions what exactly has to be done if you are upgrading to a hard drive bigger than 2TB. Hope this helps.

I am in the market for a new PC and I would like to add my an additional internal SATA drives of 3TB capacity. I am getting mixed info from the online chat reps. Has anyone installed and verified a 3TB internal SATA drive on an Inspiron 660. I am looking at one of the new 660 models with the i5 processor. thanks

If a circa-2005 Dimension 3100 will support 4tb drives, a new 660 should have no problem.

The Crucial site is great for checking product compatibility. When I go through the process of selecting a 3TB drive, the WD and the Seagate 3TB drives both show as incompatible with the Inspiron 660. I actually bought a WD30EZRX 3TB drive for my current old HP Pavilon PC, but it doesn't work. WD support said check to make sure the BIOS and motherboard support drives greater than 2TB. I cannot seem to find that information anywhere. I also tried the 3TB drive in a Dell Studio 540s and it does not work there either. That PC is probably 3 years old.

I am not sure about the Dimension 3100 and its ability to support a 4TB drive unless there is a newer SATA controller installed or it is an external drive connected via USB. I have a 3TB external Seagate drive connected to the 540s. From what I have read, the drive box does the conversion from SATA to USB which makes them compatible with just about any system.

One thing I noticed is that the older PCs typically have a 3Gbps SATA speed and the WD drive I have is 6Gbps. I tried putting a jumper on the drive to lock the speed to 3Gbps hoping it would be recognized as 3TB. But it still shows up in my BIOS as 801GB.

I will use the Crucial site as a guide to which new PCs support the >2TB drives.

Western Digital and others use a Controller with 64 bit Windows to overcome the barrier. This will not work with Windows 8 because Secure Boot Prevents Any OS or Card etc from running anything other than 64 bit windows 8.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136764

HighPoint RocketRAID 620 PCI-Express 2.0 x1 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115075

I am not sure about the Dimension 3100 and its ability to support a 4TB drive unless there is a newer SATA controller installed or it is an external drive connected via USB. I have a 3TB external Seagate drive connected to the 540s. From what I have read, the drive box does the conversion from SATA to USB which makes them compatible with just about any system.

I had the 4gb installed inside the 3100 and it was fully recognized as a data drive under Windows 8, but cannot be used as a boot drive. (Only UEFI-equipped machines can boot from large drives.)  Note that only Windows Vista, 7 and 8 can fully recognize these large drives, and that XP cannot. Be aware that I have confirmed this through experience in my own Dimension 3100 using the OEM SATA posts and that it is not conjecture.

To satisfy my curiosity, I tried the 4gb with a Vostro 220s (Vista 64-bit Ultimate) and it is fully recognized.

I just bought an inspiron 660 with windows 8. I want to add a second 3.5" SATA internal drive but I don't want to screw it up. When I added it to my previous windows vista desktop, the drive didn't get properly recognized. Anyone have access to instructions they can share?  This thing's gonna work right?

The WDC way works.  It requires a GPT partition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=a0p06nmeC3A

Western Digital and others use a Controller with 64 bit Windows to overcome the barrier. This will work with Windows 8 using LEGACY CSM in BIOS with Secure Boot OFF.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136764

HighPoint RocketRAID 620 PCI-Express 2.0 x1 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115075