AHCI Questions

[Niklas_13]

Hello all,

Well when i built my PC i didn't know about the AHCI for sata HDD DVD so my system is set to IDE , Was wondering how much of a differences it makes, Also If i do reinstall one day could i download the drivers off gigabytes website to a USB drive and use that over a floppy after i hit F6 on the install. When i do reinstall i will add a 120 gigs SSD for my OS and program's and use my WD black 640 for a storage drive.


Thanks

 

[ckaz]

I've got AHCI installed on my 80gb SSD. It makes a difference, but its not huge. I think the difference is even less for HDD's. Plus, when you enable it after you've installed windows, it is known to be problematic.

 

[Niklas_13]

Thanks for the reply. I was not going to try to enable it now i was going to do it next time i reinstall windows 7 when i upgrade to a SSD. My question is do i have to install drivers for it when installing windows 7 or does windows 7 have drivers for it and if i need to install a driver can i use a USB flash drive over the floppy.

Thanks

 

[sminlal]

Windows 7 has the drivers for pretty much all of the popular SATA chipsets available when it was released. It's pretty unlikely that you'll need to do anything special unless you're using a *really* new motherboard, perhaps one that supports SATA Version 3, for example.

 

[Niklas_13]

Windows 7 has the drivers for pretty much all of the popular SATA chipsets available when it was released. It's pretty unlikely that you'll need to do anything special unless you're using a *really* new motherboard, perhaps one that supports SATA Version 3, for example.

My mobo is a gigabyte P55-UD4P http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3161

On the website there is a SATA2 driver

SATA RAID
Date Description Version Size
2009/12/03 GIGABYTE SATA2 Preinstall driver (For AHCI / RAID Mode)
Note: Press F6 during Windows setup to read from floppy.
Download from :
Asia Asia(China) America Europe Europe(Russia) : ftp / http 1.17.52.02 0.19 MB
2009/12/03 GIGABYTE SATA2 Driver
Download from :
Asia Asia(China) America Europe Europe(Russia) : ftp / http 1.17.52.02 2.83 MB
2009/08/11 Intel SATA RAID Driver
Download from :
Asia Asia(China) America Europe Europe(Russia) : ftp / http 8.9.0.1023 13.10 MB


Is that just a updated driver i can load after the OS or should i download it and use it when reinstalling the OS when i buy my SSD ?

 

[sminlal]

My guess is that the driver would be for Windows XP which doesn't include native support for AHCI.

 

[ckaz]

If the motherboard has the option, then the motherboard supports it. Take a look and see.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 have support for it. XP does not. If you have vista or 7, there won't be any drivers you need to install, just enable it on your motherboard

 

[Niklas_13]

Best answer selected by niklas_13.