I just bought a new SSD (Samsung EVO 840 250GB) and during the setup process noticed there is no option for AHCI in my BIOS. I know I didn't overlook the option either as I literally checked every option - I did some research and my MB/BIOS (EVGA NF68/680i SLI w/phoenix award BIOS) doesn't support AHCI.
So then I read online that RAID/AHCI are essentially the same, so I decided to set it up as RAID; albeit it's a single drive, I read there are advantages to setting it up as RAID. I'm *very* knowledgeable when it comes to PCs, and I've been building them for years now, but RAID is the only aspect I've never messed with. From what very little I do actually know about RAID, I always thought it required 2 or more drives to even function, so I was skeptical it would work with my single SSD. I have 3 mechanical HDs as well, and my BIOS actually has the option to enable RAID on select drives, so I selected ONLY the SSD.
This is where I finally get to my questions. In the RAID setup utility after POST, I had no idea what to set the SSD to (striped/mirrored/span/Raid 5/etc)...but I assumed (I hope correctly!) that it would make no difference what I selected since it's a single drive, so I chose striped. Every time I boot, after post, it lists the SSD as "Nvidia Striped - Healthy", and even benchmarking programs don't see it as a Samsung SSD, rather as "Nvidia Striped". This is disheartening only because some benchmarking programs won't see it at all, and most importantly Samsung Magician, which is often touted as awesome software, won't see it in RAID and doesn't even know it's there.
So my questions:
1. Does the type of RAID matter when it's a single drive?
2. Did setting it up in RAID make it better, worse, or have no effect on performance/lifespan?
TBH I could care less about benchmarking results as they rarely mean anything for real world use, I only use them to see if something is potentially wrong with the drive as compared to other PCs. HD Tune is showing just a little lower than what I'd expect on a SATA II connection as far as read @ 215 MB/s (won't let me test write for some reason), and although the seek times are AMAZING compared to my mechanical HDDs, at 0.082 ms that's almost triple what I've seen benchmarked online @ around 0.03 ms. Again, real world, no human can even perceive a millisecond, much less a difference of .05 ms, but I'm just wondering why the difference. Also CPU usage seems very high at 6.6% compared to some benchmarks I've seen online of 1-2%. Is there any way to get that down?
Thanks in advance!!!
Joe
So then I read online that RAID/AHCI are essentially the same, so I decided to set it up as RAID; albeit it's a single drive, I read there are advantages to setting it up as RAID. I'm *very* knowledgeable when it comes to PCs, and I've been building them for years now, but RAID is the only aspect I've never messed with. From what very little I do actually know about RAID, I always thought it required 2 or more drives to even function, so I was skeptical it would work with my single SSD. I have 3 mechanical HDs as well, and my BIOS actually has the option to enable RAID on select drives, so I selected ONLY the SSD.
This is where I finally get to my questions. In the RAID setup utility after POST, I had no idea what to set the SSD to (striped/mirrored/span/Raid 5/etc)...but I assumed (I hope correctly!) that it would make no difference what I selected since it's a single drive, so I chose striped. Every time I boot, after post, it lists the SSD as "Nvidia Striped - Healthy", and even benchmarking programs don't see it as a Samsung SSD, rather as "Nvidia Striped". This is disheartening only because some benchmarking programs won't see it at all, and most importantly Samsung Magician, which is often touted as awesome software, won't see it in RAID and doesn't even know it's there.
So my questions:
1. Does the type of RAID matter when it's a single drive?
2. Did setting it up in RAID make it better, worse, or have no effect on performance/lifespan?
TBH I could care less about benchmarking results as they rarely mean anything for real world use, I only use them to see if something is potentially wrong with the drive as compared to other PCs. HD Tune is showing just a little lower than what I'd expect on a SATA II connection as far as read @ 215 MB/s (won't let me test write for some reason), and although the seek times are AMAZING compared to my mechanical HDDs, at 0.082 ms that's almost triple what I've seen benchmarked online @ around 0.03 ms. Again, real world, no human can even perceive a millisecond, much less a difference of .05 ms, but I'm just wondering why the difference. Also CPU usage seems very high at 6.6% compared to some benchmarks I've seen online of 1-2%. Is there any way to get that down?
Thanks in advance!!!
Joe
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