I see it. Still BS, IMO. Such a drive would simply only use the
5V connectors (as 2.5" drives do) and not do any switching.
In fact why add any switching at all? It requires an additional
voltage monitor and 2power-FETs, probably > $2 in parts at volume
prices.
My guess would be that a batch of defective or substandard drives
was put on the market though some shady channels and WD does not
want to admit that, instead giving people this stupid story.
Side note: If you put 12V into a 5V circuit, it dies immediately
and spectacularly, i.e. components exploding and smoke comming
out of it. The reason is that 1) isolation barriers fail, creating
huge currents and 2) 12V = 5V * 2.4 and power consumption goes
with the square of the voltage, i.e. power draw at 12V = 5.7 * power
draw at 5V. Trust me, I have seen the smoke. (Had a Y-cable once
that was wired wrongly. Used it to make a 1->4 cable without
checking and blew 1 12G and a 17G HDD into the afterlife. Ouch.
Fortunately my backups were good and current.)
That said, it is not completely impossible that a batch of
special design (i.e. not even OEM) drives that are
not SATA compliant did reach the market and that the
motor driver did indeed survive for some hours on 12V
while cooled and configured for 5V (they are switching
drivers these days and can take such overload for a short
time).
In this case the drives are not allowed to carry the SATA
logo and that may be one reson why WD tried to keep it quiet.
Such a design and the "switchover" comment are still BS,
as the 3 x 5V contacts in the SATA power connector
can carry up to 4.5A combined without even violating the
spec, i.e. 22.5W. That is quite enough and even for a 5V
only design there is zero need to use the 12V contacts to
carry 5V.
Again, I can see one exception: These drives were intentionally
designed to fail with a delay of minutes...hours when operated
on a normal SATA power connector, e.g. in a misguided attempt
to protect the data on them. Or if the device they were contained
in was actually cheaper than the whole drive on the normal market.
This type of modification would also require the protection diode
to be removed on the 12V line.
Again, this would be a strong reason for WD to want to keep this
quiet.
So my take is this is possible, but only by intentionial sabotage by
WD. And likely a contract violation by the person that put them on
the open market. Such drives will never reach the ordinary market
unless something goes seriously wrong. All the external 3.5" drives
I have seen (many WD among them) use 12V PSUs and would just have
the normal configuration, in particular as the special configuration
costs more to make.
For basically all intents and purposes, forget about this scenario.
Even if true, it is extremely unlike to hit you, i.e. far, far
less likely than a new drive dying of its own in the first few hours.
Arno
- and you guessed it - DEAD as a mackeral in a salmon feeding