XPS 8960, really have a 4TB max storage capacity?

Question

Hello,

Looking to purchase Dell XPS 8960 and was told by "chat" that the max storage is 4TB. I wanted to purchase a 2TB SSD with the build, and then add a 4TB HDD for backup as I work with a lot of video. Can anyone verify that this is correct? It seems when buying a $2500 PC nowadays it should be able to handle bigger backup drives. Any information is appreciated.

Chino de Oro · Answer

Maximum storage is the specs of capacity Dell has tested and validated.  It's also what Dell has available to sell with the system at configurations.  You can add higher capacity with the maximum capacity available in the market after the purchase.

garioch7 · Answer

@johnschwei ,Welcome to the Dell Forums.  The 8960 can handle two HDDs.  As @Chino de Oro has already told you, you can add much larger capacity drives than what Dell sells directly for the model at time of purchase.https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-ca/xps-8960-desktop/xps-8960-service-manual/installing-the-35-inch-hard-drive?guid=guid-a888fb0d-34a0-4977-a6dc-af26177766fa&lang=en-usI have an old 8930 SE with three HDD drive bays. In one HDD bay, I have the 2 TB Seagate HDD with the computer from Dell when I ordered it, in addition to the 1 TB NVMe SSD. Subsequently, I ordered and installed a WD Black 4 TB in my second drive bay. One HDD bay is empty.The system works great.  I am also video editing and use the 4 TB for storing my weekly system backups as well.  I hope this helps.  Have a great day.Regards, Phil

MastiffX · Answer

Sorry for sticking my nose in, but I did read that your need is for backup, and you really should backup to a destination outside your computer, like an external hard drive or (even better) an NAS.

RoHe · Answer

The XPS 8960 has M.2 slots for two NVME SSDs, so why consider using a slow HDD?

Your XPS 8960 supports one of the following storage configurations:

Up to two M.2 2230 or M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe solid-state drives
Up to two M.2 2230 or M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe solid-state drives + up to two 3.5-inch hard drives

Yago1 · Answer

I know it's been a while, however: I installed two 8TB WB black drives in the XPS 8960 and I completely removed the fairly worthless KIOXIA 1TB SSD it came with (and BTW, also all of Dell's intrusive phone-home software). I'm looking for a larger SSD for working files use, but so far none are worth the cost. So I'll likely wipe the one it came with and use it for a scratch drive. As for speed, unless I'm working with really immense files or doing a lot of stuff that fills the paging file because of insufficient RAM, the difference is negligible. I work w/ lots of VERY large RAW photo images locally (not using any cloud software/services), and a lot of FTP transfers. It takes a second or two to open/save a file, but they would have to open almost instantly for me to see any difference--and I'm not in that much of a hurry. Likewise, I boot from one of the HDDs because there is no question I can get back up in a hurry in the event of a crash, since I only need to swap the drive w/ my backup drive (experience taught me not to trust an SSD for my main drive). I also use a NAS locally for incremental backups (using WD Red drives). QNAP makes a good NAS with quite a few configureation options.

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XPS Desktops

XPS 8960, really have a 4TB max storage capacity?

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