Do I really need RST?

[JohnnyGui]

Hey all,

So I've been searching the whole web and I can't seem to find an exact answer for my question and I thought maybe you guys could help me out with this.

I have an Asrock Pro4 Z77 mobo with a Hitachi HDD in AHCI mode running on Windows 8 Pro 64 bit

A while ago I installed the Intel Rapid Storage driver as part of all of the necessary Windows 8 drivers. Today I checked Intel's website and found a newer version of this RST driver. However, I also noticed there's an AHCI version of this driver (see here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=22271&ProdId=3434&lang=eng&OSVersion=Windows%208%2C%2064-bit*&DownloadType=Drivers)

So I wondered if maybe I installed a RAID version the first time (while my HDD is in AHCI mode). I looked in the Device Manager and I saw that the Storage controller seemed to have a Microsoft driver instead of Intel's RST. That is when I thought (and I could be wrong) maybe I've installed the wrong driver. The IDE ATA/ATAPI controller group showed that I have an Intel 7 Series/C216 Chipset SATA AHCI Controller.

So I was about to uninstall the old RAID version and install the newer AHCI version when I wondered if these drivers are actually really necessary.

So my question is: Are there any benefits having RST? If so, is the driver in the link the correct one for my system? Is it safe to uninstall the RST driver?

Thanks in advance,

John

 

[GhislainG]

Don't uninstall the old drivers if they were required to install the OS. Simply upgrade them if you want to by downloading and running STOR_Win7_8_11.7.0.1013_PV.exe. AHCI and RAID require the same drivers.

 

[JohnnyGui]

Thanks for the quick response.

The driver wasn't required to install Windows, I just installed it afterwards since I read it could improve storage performance.
Also, as the device manager shows, I don't think it uses the RST driver. However Í'm not sure if the Storage Controller is the right place where I should check this.

So you're saying I could benefit from this driver (performance-wise)?

 

[GhislainG]

The Intel drivers included with Windows 8 should be fine. Upgrading the drivers won't improve performance; they resolve issues that you may not have. Read what the new version fixes or simply upgrade.