Does the 730 SSD use 12V power?

[ppara5]

One of the differences between consumer and enterprise SSDs is the amount of power they draw, with the latter not being limited to what a laptop SATA connector can supply. The 730 is half fish / half fowl, being a S3500 DC with some engineering changes, or so it would appear.

A Storage Review (https://storagereview.com/intel_ssd_730_series_review) article from 2014 suggests that 730s can use either 5V or 12V, but prefer the latter.

Does the 730 need to draw 12V power or can it run with only 5V?

I ask because I would like to run one inside an external USB enclosure. I would guess that a double-cord one like Vantec's NexStar CX (NST-200S3-BK) should supply enough 5V power, but 12V is not possible (as Vantec told me).

[ppara5 · Accepted solution]

I think I found the answer. In the product specification, the following is noted:

Power Management

− 2.5 inch: 5V or 12V SATA Supply Rail 4

Power (5V / 12V) 5

− Active: 5.0W / 5.5W

So 12V is preferred, but not required.

[ppara5]

As a follow-up, I tested whether a 730 240GB SSD can run Linux via an external USB enclosure. It cannot. Building the OS works okay, but booting does not work. I tried this with two enclosures that work with other SSDs. I suspect that all enterprise drives would act the same, as they were never intended for this purpose. Linux can be installed and run via SATA, however.