A system, method and computer-readable storage devices for enabling improved management and installation of default configurations for firmware such as a basic input/output system (BIOS) or unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI) on a computer motherboard. The system disclosed herein includes an additional storage device connected to system south bridge, which can store additional groups of default firmware configuration settings. The additional storage device is accessible directly by both the firmware and the baseboard management controller (BMC), so that a remote entity can update the firmware through an out-of-band network connection without using a local operating system and without booting into a local firmware update utility. In one variation, the additional storage can still be separately accessible via a local operating system. In this way, the configuration procedure is more flexible and convenient for managing multiple computing devices, such as for managing a rack of servers in a data center.