SATA bios settings - Does AHCI imply Native/Sata mode? (if not - what is AHCI?)

[sumguy99]

Many (if not all) bios's have two fundamental settings for the on-board SATA interface:

1) Legacy/Emulated/IDE/PATA mode
2) Native/SATA mode

I believe that it's correct to say that Raid could be a subset of either 1 or 2 (more commonly 2). I don't believe that there are any third choices - unless someone can tell me that AHCI could be a third choice?

My question is mainly about AHCI. What is AHCI? Is it an idea? A concept? An interface layer?

Does AHCI *automatically kick in* when you select (2) in the bios? Could (2) have been described or identified as:

2) Native/SATA/AHCI mode?

 

[Hawkeye22]

Some boards list options as IDE or AHCI. Others list them as IDE or NATIVE, yet other list as Legacy or Native In this case NATIVE=AHCI. My Gigabyte boards lists it as native. Your motherboard manual should explain this. AHCI stands for Advance Host Controller Interface. It enables special features on drives like NCQ (Native command Queing) and hot swap.

Vista and up support AHCI out of the box.

 

[sumguy99]

So can I get a straight answer?

Does (native/sata) mode = AHCI ?

 

[Hawkeye22]

I did in my first post. "In this case NATIVE=AHCI". To be sure, read your motherboard manual. It's not that hard to look up.

 

[sumguy99]

> > So can I get a straight answer?
> >
> > Does (native/sata) mode = AHCI ?
>
> I did in my first post. "In this case NATIVE=AHCI"

ARRG!

FAIL!

I am not looking for an "In this case" answer!!

Does (native/sata) mode ALWAYS EQUAL AHCI?

Is there such a thing as a native/sata mode that IS NOT AHCI?

 

[Hawkeye22]

Not in my experience, but I don't build a large number of systems and I mainly use gigabyte motherboards. If you need a definitive answer, then you'll need to wait for someone else to reply. I would expect that native always equal AHCI and I'm surprised motherboard manufacturers haven't already done away with IDE/legacy mode.