System Requirements for an Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series Drive

The PCI Express* (PCIe*) Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series is based on the NVMe* standard with Intel® Optane™ technology. Successful use of the Intel Optane SSD 900P Series as a boot device requires NVMe* hardware, BIOS, and driver support.

Two hardware form factors available

Form Factor	Image
Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series Add-in Card (AiC), Half Height, Half Length (HHHL) The HHHL comes with the full height bracket installed and a Half Height bracket in the box.

Form Factor and Accessories	Image
Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series U.2 2.5 inch 15 mm height drive
[Retail Box Option 1] Includes U.2 (SFF-8639) to SFF-8643 Adapter cable Note Your motherboard must accept the SFF 8643 connector. Make sure the electrical connection on the motherboard, is PCIe, not SAS. Or, use an SFF-8643 to M.2 adapter with a PCIe M.2 capable motherboard (shown on the right).
[Retail Box Option 2] Includes U.2 (SFF-8639) to M.2 Adapter cable

Basic requirements

To use as a bootable drive, you need:

• PCIe NVMe storage capable hardware motherboard support. Consult your system or motherboard vendor for more information
  • Add-in Card (AiC) form factor: PCIe 3.0 x4 connector (best performance)
  • 2.5 inch form factor:
    • U.2 Cable for connection to the SSD
    • PCIe-capable SFF-8643 connector or a PCIe-capable M.2 connector
• Airflow across the drive to provide cooling, such as a front fan and rear fan
• System BIOS that supports UEFI 2.3.1 or later with NVMe support
• GPT* drive format (See how to install OS to GPT)
• Microsoft Windows 7* or Windows® 10 operating system (OS)

  Note	Other OS supporting these requirements may function properly, but we have not validated them yet.
• Intel® NVMe driver installed during OS installation – follow instructions in the Boot Installation Guide

  Note	OS that contains a native NVMe* driver should also work, but the Intel NVMe driver is preferred for Windows.

  • If there is no native OS NVMe driver and the Intel NVMe driver is not available, the drive is not seen during installation

To use as a secondary data drive, you need:

• PCIe NVMe storage capable hardware motherboard support. Consult your system/motherboard vendor for more information
  • Add-in Card Form Factor: PCIe 3.0 x4 connector (Best performance)
  • 2.5 inch Form Factor:
    • U.2 Cable for connection to the SSD
    • PCIe-capable SFF-8643 connector or a PCIe-capable M.2 connector
• Airflow across the drive to provide cooling, such as a front fan and rear fan
• System BIOS that supports UEFI 2.3.1 or later with NVMe support
• Microsoft Windows 7 or Windows 10 OS

  Note	Other OS supporting these requirements may function properly, but we have not validated them yet.
• Intel® NVMe driver installed after OS installation

  Note	OS that contains a native NVMe driver should also work, but the Intel NVMe driver is preferred for Windows.