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Go to SolutionOptiplex 7010 MT Maximum Hard Drive Capacity
I'm running BIOS A29 on my Optiplex 7010 MT. I currently have a 8TB hard drive working with no issues (under Linux) and would like to add a 12TB hard drive, but I can't find any documentation on the maximum hard drive size support by this BIOS.
Where can I go to find that? I looked at the notes on the last 10 or so BIOS's but none of them mentioned hard drive capacity (going back to 2016)
there is no maximum, it's like looking in Hubble and saying how far can we see.
there is a 2TB limit for MBR, (or tad more fiddling cluster sizes)
you PC running w10 -64bit,?
The 64bit will format that drive (by default), as GPT, , even with my PC running legacy mode, not UEFI.
The GPT , limits do not reach max until the year 3000,(lol), if ever.. petabytes, are beyond human realities, now..
the old 8 year old 2012 manuals will show some silly limit that means (what they had at hand 8 years ago as a snap shot in time)
I have ,3 drives, in mine and 5 total (+2SDD)
6TB + 3TB and one 6TB on running on my USB-C port (added)
the fastest HDD made in fact, Seagates !
for linux mostly the same thing but there are what 10,000 distributions of linux, so , be best to ask them or upgrade linux to newest kernel. (unbuntu v18?) but I'd not expect any mondern linux to limit you but then again
it has its own linux formats/
Linux has GPT and other sub formats, some even shared with Windows (not NTFS)
Thanks, I'm running Openmediavault on the machine as a Plex server. My boot drive is a 120GB SSD, but I have 2x 1TB, 2x 4TB and 1x 8TB connected right now. I'll need another SATA controller to add another drive, but wanted to make sure it would work before buying another card. Sounds like I should be good to go since I still have a PCIe x4 slot available for the controller.
Anything more than 2TB requires GPT Partition.
NON UEFI systems cannot boot larger than 2TB drives.
Villian-IV
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Posted July 2nd, 2023 08:00
Come people please answer this question. It is rapidly coming up to its third birthday. What is the point of having this chat if the owner has to wait three years?
Come on pleople
Chino de Oro
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Posted July 2nd, 2023 12:00
It'd been answered. Did you missed it? There is no HDD size limit in BIOS of OptiPlex 7010.
OP already marked accept as solution, meaning the 12TB worked with OP's 7010.
@Chino de Oro My PC is optiplex 7010 micro plus, and it's not accepting more than 2tb external hard drive what can be done in my case
Chino de Oro
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Posted January 16th, 2026 09:04
Re: My PC is optiplex 7010 micro plus, and it's not accepting more than 2tb external hard drive what can be done in my case.
You can open new thread and providing more info about system OS, connection ports, and how you tested external drives.
savvy2
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Posted March 12th, 2020 04:00
the bios , is not the limit (in fact BIOS likes your HDD even 100% erased, no formats of any kind)
your OS uses a driver, this driver talks directly to the SATA ports. and BIOS is not even running,.
UEFI issues not with standing.....
you said ADD a drive must be the non boot drive, so just works for sure, just plug it , in SEE it does work
no need to fear plugging any empty, HDD, ever. just do it.. (empty = erased or new )
when you boot the PC the BIOS scans the 2nd (1 example) HDD, and see the HDD report its ID page,PnP,
the BIOS sees what it is and reports it..(stores this PnP data) then the OS can see. later. (non boot drives)