omoplata

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Hey guys

Recently i purchased an SSD. I am planing on installing it NOT as a boot drive. Ill be using this SSD as a separate drive to play a few games on. I was reading my motherboard manual on configuring SATA Hard drives and it says, "To create RAID, set PCH SATA Control Mode under the Integrated Peripherals menu to RAID(XHD). If you do not want to create RAID, set this item to IDE or AHCI.

Well im not going to be using a RAID array so i know that i need to use IDE or AHCI. Which one should i use? Is there a difference? Again, I wont be using this drive as a boot drive, just as an extra hard drive to store games.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte z68x-ud3-b3
The SSD is a Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)


Many Thanks
 
Solution


OK, then if you connect your SSD in AHCI mode to port GSATA3_6 or GSATA3_7 you do not have to do a Windows Registry fix.
Regardless of usage, any SSD should be in AHCI mode for maximum performance.

If you have a CD/DVD drive or Blu-ray drive on the same controller as your SSD then you will probably have to use IDE mode. Most optical drives only work in IDE mode.
 
^+1

Using IDE mode makes some sense when you're installing an older operating system such as Windows XP that don't include native support for AHCI. But AHCI is the more modern protocol, and it has some performance enhancements that make it the better choice. If you're using a modern operating system then you should definitely use AHCI.
 
If you already have your OS installed on another hdd then you cannot set the mode to AHCI or you will get blue screens. This mode has to be set before you install your OS. You can change the mode after the OS has been loaded but you have to go into the registry to change some settings so you won't get BSOD.
 


If the HDD & SSD are both on one of the 1st 6 Intel ports, then yes, a Windows registry edit will be needed.
But if the HDD is on one of the 6 Intel ports, and the SSD is on one of the 2 Marvell ports, then a registry edit will not be needed.
 

omoplata

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thank you all for the reply.

What do you mean by 6 intel ports and Marvell ports? This is what my sata ports look like:

(there are some underneath my GPU)

100_1681.jpg


100_1683.jpg


I have 8 SATA ports on my mobo all together. the first 4 are SATA 2 ports and the next two are SATA 3.0 ports. The last two ports are for a RAID array.

So are you guys saying that if i install an SSD into my SATA 3 ports i will need to change something in my registry?

thanks again
 

omoplata

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Here is the layout of my motherboard as shown in the manual:

100_1687.jpg


My HDD is currently plugged into SATA2_5




edit: under review the ports GSATA3_6 AND GSATA3_7 are my marvel ports, the rest are the chipset ports. Should i just plug the SSD into the marvell ports or go with the SATA 3 chipset ports? I did no configuration of my HDD when i built the PC. All i did was plug the sucker up and install windows on it.
 

omoplata

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ah ok i will plug it into one of those ports! thanks.
 

jimmyd1964

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Microsoft has an Auto fix for it "MicrosftFixit50470" It will load drivers for AHCI then you reboot to Bios change drives to AHCI, Reboot, DONE
 

jimmyd1964

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Microsoft has an Auto Fix button to do the registry changes and load AHCI drivers for you.
"MicrosoftFixit50470" load this it will install AHCI drivers, reboot to Bios change drives to AHCI,

I did it With Win 7 64bit already installed set to IDE and it worked great. Bot my WD Black and Plextor 890SA Optical Drive.
:bounce:
 

Rixer

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Thanks! This was helping me so much.
 

Moon_Breaker

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Hi. I have similar problem. When I installed on my new Intel SSD the Win7 X64, it was set to IDE instead of AHCI in bios by default (didnt knew AHCI was better till now)
I have this mobo : http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3436#ov
so what can I do if I want to keep my current win7 installation jet set IDE to AHCI in bios?
where to connect my ssd, do some registry something in windows, or set something in bios?

thank You in advance
 

rubbed

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Hi,
I am having this exact problem.
HDD is connected to the Sata2_0 port.
SSD is connected to GSATA3_6 port.

I have set GSATA as AHCI.
Should I do the same for the Sata2 port or leave as IDE?

I want to use both hard drives together (HDD as storage, SSD as primary drive and OS).
Will setting both to AHCI make a difference or aslong as the SSD is AHCI it wont matter about the HDD?
 

FireWire2

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You should change to AHCI on boht in BIOS -

IDE offers 133MB/s max and does not have NCQ... AHCI is far better performance to offer
 

jhartgraves

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Sorry if stupid question, but how do you do the Auto Fix?
 

giantbucket

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the Microsoft Hotfix is automatically run from MS's web site. and it should also give you steps if you want to do it manually yourself.

even if you do the registry fix, you can still boot into Win7 with the BIOS set to IDE mode. you'll see some speed gain. if you then change the BIOS to AHCI, you'll get a bit more gains and Win will probably need to do an update to itself. so bottom line is that you can do the MS Hotfix first and not be in a panic to change the BIOS immediately.

heck, I ran my machine for a week with the hotfix / registry change but with BIOS in IDE mode just fine.

only catch is that you HAVE TO do the windows change BEFORE you can do the BIOS change.
 

giantbucket

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I'm not sure I agree 100%. I had my SATA set to IDE in BIOS, and was still able to get mid-400MB/s read/write speeds on my SSD. changing BIOS to AHCI got me to just over 500MB/s speeds.

the NCQ is probably 100% correct.