IDE vs AHCI

[MxPhenom 216]

When i installed my SSD i didnt know that if i set it to ACHI in the bios i get more performance out of it. Its set to IDE. Is it worth the complete reinstall of changing it to ACHI??

 

[Solaris17]

hmm i know for HDD's it isnt as iv personally done it....but i think your deff supposed to for ACHI weather its worth it im unsuire about. I think your only REALLY supposed to for SSD's because of trim or some shit. As for speeds im not to sure maybe a few mb/s i would have to brush up on it again. of course at the end of the day it comes down to how much you feel like backing up your stuff because an install of 7 via thumbdrive will only take like 10min.

EDIT:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=505&Itemid=38

 

[GENTLEMEN]

I'd set it to AHCI to check if the performance boosts. It did for me, but boot time went up quite a bit (ahci loading after bios).

 

[Widjaja]

ACHI is the later and supposed to be better but in my experience with other machines I have found it doesn't give much of a performance boost.

 

[TheLostSwede]

FYI, the ACHI boot bit goes away with UEFI...

 

[MxPhenom 216]

fyi, the achi boot bit goes away with uefi...

uefi??

 

[slyfox2151]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface

not a bios, but UEFI.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface

not a bios, but UEFI.

Oh yeah i heard about that. isnt that coming out like in a couple years??

 

[Widjaja]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface

not a bios, but UEFI.

Off topic:-
Extensible is a word?!

Carry on....

 

[{JNT}Raptor]

With an SSD....most report crappy performance before switching over to AHCI.
Your not getting the full speed of your SSD without AHCI.....but "most" would need to reinstall the OS in order to switch the setting in bios.....you can google how to do it without a reinstall......I've seen it done myself.

Bottom line though......AHCI will unleash your beast....IDE will not.

Hope it helps.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

With an SSD....most report crappy performance before switching over to AHCI.
Your not getting the full speed of your SSD without AHCI.....but "most" would need to reinstall the OS in order to switch the setting in bios.....you can google how to do it without a reinstall......I've seen it done myself.

Bottom line though......AHCI will unleash your beast....IDE will not.

Hope it helps.

alright well im probably going to do it tomorrow so

 

[btarunr]

You need AHCI for TRIM. Without TRIM, your write performance will degrade over time.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

You need AHCI for TRIM. Without TRIM, your write performance will degrade over time.

alright thanks.

So tomorrow when i go to do it. just should i go into the bios change it to ACHI and then boot from the windows disk to reinstall??

 

[btarunr]

You can actually switch between IDE and AHCI modes in Vista/7 (with the OS installed). Microsoft has a Knowledge Base article on that. Just backup your 4chan treasure before you try it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

 

[Mussels]

AHCI doesnt give much in the way of performance boosts, its features.

NCQ and hot swap being the main two.

 

[Millennium]

You can actually switch between IDE and AHCI modes in Vista/7 (with the OS installed). Microsoft has a Knowledge Base article on that. Just backup your 4chan treasure before you try it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

I did this and it worked fine. Don't bother with the reinstall this takes like 2 minutes

 

[RejZoR]

AHCI doesnt give much in the way of performance boosts, its features.

NCQ and hot swap being the main two.

And slightly lower CPU utilization.

 

[Solaris17]

You can actually switch between IDE and AHCI modes in Vista/7 (with the OS installed). Microsoft has a Knowledge Base article on that. Just backup your 4chan treasure before you try it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

thats not a good idea. that simply changes what the OS thinks its installed as that does not enable the features that would be eneabled when nativly installed under AHCI.

 

[Steve-007UK]

Sorry if its been mentioned but you do not have to reinstall the OS when you set it the AHCI mode, just make sure you install the driver in windows first then when you make the bios change the pc should boot just fine. (there might be a reg edit you need to do first aswell)

I know it works for me but might not work for others.

I will try and find the info i used a while ago and post the link here.

thats not a good idea. that simply changes what the OS thinks its installed as that does not enable the features that would be eneabled when nativly installed under AHCI.

Worked fine here tho i dont have an SSD but my normal drive defo had all fetures enabled after i installed the driver, thinking bout it now i defo had to do a regedit to.

 

[Mussels]

Sorry if its been mentioned but you do not have to reinstall the OS when you set it the AHCI mode, just make sure you install the driver in windows first then when you make the bios change the pc should boot just fine. (there might be a reg edit you need to do first aswell)

I know it works for me but might not work for others.

I will try and find the info i used a while ago and post the link here.



Worked fine here tho i dont have an SSD but my normal drive defo had all fetures enabled after i installed the driver, thinking bout it now i defo had to do a regedit to.

the trick i usually do is to set up a second SATA controller - be it onboard, a PCI-E or PCI card, and move the OS drive to that.

Instsall drivers, shut down, move OS to the newly installed SATA controller, configure the old one to AHCI,boot windows on the new controller - install AHCI drivers, shut down, put back on regular controller.

 

[cilindrox]

You need AHCI for TRIM. Without TRIM, your write performance will degrade over time.

Not entirely true, AHCI only helps in some synthetic benchmarks. In fact, I have the de facto IDE option in my laptop with a Mushkin Callisto Deluxe and TRIM is working perfectly.
Enabling AHCI will only stress your SSD even more without any real tangible benefits - besides the WPI, of course.

Here's a link (couldn't find the OCZ report) - http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-hardware/18767-ahci-ssds.html#post78921

 

[Steve-007UK]

the trick i usually do is to set up a second SATA controller - be it onboard, a PCI-E or PCI card, and move the OS drive to that.

Instsall drivers, shut down, move OS to the newly installed SATA controller, configure the old one to AHCI,boot windows on the new controller - install AHCI drivers, shut down, put back on regular controller.

I got blue screens after setting my bios to AHCI mode so i set it back to ide then loaded windows 7 up, installed AHCI drivers made a regedit and restarted the pc, Went into bios set it back to AHCI mode and it booted fine. never had to change the sata port or anything but like i said it might not work for everyone.

 

[btarunr]

thats not a good idea. that simply changes what the OS thinks its installed as that does not enable the features that would be eneabled when nativly installed under AHCI.

Hot-switching IDE to AHCI (with OS installed) enables NCQ on HDDs that support it. So I'm sure TRIM gets enabled. When you switch from IDE to AHCI, Windows redetects the hard-drive (or in this case, the SSD) and controller it's installed on (despite booting from the same drive).

 

[Millennium]

Since no-one has posted the actual instructions (ok maybe the MS ones ) here is what I did and it worked 100%!

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=313676

 

[Steve-007UK]

Since no-one has posted the actual instructions (ok maybe the MS ones ) here is what I did and it worked 100%!

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=313676

I was going to post info but the beers and wine have kicked in so i cant be arsed now but when i feel more normal i will post the info i said i would hehe.

happy new year all.