Can i use sata 2 and sata 3 drives through AHCI

[car50]

Hello, Is it normal to have a SSD, SATA 3, as a operating system drive and a SATA 2 drive such as WD caviar Black as a secondary drive for games, like portal 2 or Battlefield 3, or will the games crash while running if ran in AHCI bios setting? AMD chipset

 

[Wamphryi]

You can run those drives on AHCI which is the preferred option for modern drives. Games wont crash on the basis you are running AHCI.

It is better to have your OS and your games on the SATA 3 drive. If you must put them on your SATA 2 then you may have trouble with default paths for patches etc but it can be done.

 

[car50]

so i will get a different mainboard soon anyway and i could have almost been certain that ahci on the msi 970a-G46 with a chipset update caused drive conflicts with games so im going with an asus board; ASUS M5A99X Evo - AM3+ - 990X - SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 - ATX DDR3 2133, is it best to use ahci if i never plan to raid 2 drives together or is their something else raid does?

 

[Flareside]

It is best to run AHCI with any new Mobo HD combos as it allows for the best performance with the newer drives.

Flare

 

[car50]

Well thank you both I will install windows vista, windows 7 upgrade see how the ssd does with small games below 5GB then plug in the WD Caviar black and hope i can keep some more modern games running smoothly. I will keep sata 3 in mind for a HD replacement in the future for the secondry drive. Its all going to happen in a day or two.

 

[jaquith]

Best to set the BIOS environment before installing an OS, and it's best to have all of the SATA ports the same i.e. AHCI.

There's no benefit for mechanical HDD's on SATA3 and from a throughput there's no HDD that can saturate a SATA2 (300MB/s R/W) port.

If the goal is Windows 7 then don't install Vista and Windows 7 over it, install Windows 7.

 

[Flareside]

What size is your SSD? I have a 256GB and in addition to Win7 I have Office 2010 BF3, WoW, ME3 EVE SWTOR SC2 D3 etc installed on it and stil have 60 or so GB left.

Flare

 

[car50]

120 GB, does it matter if i plug in the HDD after i install windows on the SSD. Say a week later.

 

[jaquith]

Ans - depends on the PC I'm using (SSD size) and the purpose of the PC; see my 'More Information'. Yep games suck-up a ton of space. For most Gamer's I generally recommend using their SSD for their OS + Apps + Working data and use a HDD for their Games. The couple disadvantages for HDD's are: 1. Mini-save LAG (pauses) and 2. Load times, and the disadvantages for SSD's are: 1. Cost and 2. Limited space.

More space: You can RAID 0 your '256GB' SSD i.e. a second for 512GB capacity, clone the data, and recopy to the RAID 0. Note: (no TRIM and RAID 0 is more risky)

Locations: The 'problem' is if you have a Steam account, the games all reside in the 'Steam folder' and in one location, by default it's your (C drive. You can opt to move the folder to your HDD; see - https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

Also, if you simply move the game or game installation from (C to your HDD you'll need to re-install the game(s).

Things to consider: In my case, some (few) are installed on the SSD e.g. BF3 but most are installed on the HDD and all Steam games are installed on the HDD. Further, if the Game requires Steam then it's going to install in the default location.

Some folks have a dedicated SSD just for their Steam.