it'll be a setting somewhere in the bios - without knowing the mobo you've got then it's impossible to tell you exactly where this is... well, on Asus boards it's usually something like "Main" -> "Storage Configuration" --> "Configure SATA as..." ...but whether it's quicker for you to look in the manual or for you to type your mobo details in & someone to search to find it for you i don't know.
Can it be done from windows? I thought AHCI had to be enabled in the bios. But when you do that, any drives that were IDE enabled, then become unreadable so you won't be able to boot in to windows? Won't a fresh install be the way forward? Redundant Post.
There's a registry modification to allow you to do this if you've already installed Windows (Windows 7 I assume) under IDE mode. I've done mine and works fine.
Didn't realise you'd not done this bit... Anyway, prior to changing the setting in the bios, having typed "regedit" (without the quotes both here & in both cases below) into the start->run box thing, you navigate to - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services - then right click on "msahci" & change the value to "0" Reboot & the achi drivers will be installed, & then you'll need to reboot again for them to work. Now you can change the bios setting. Once you've done all of that, it's recommended to use the latest Intel RST drivers instead - choose the ones you need from the choice here as they tend to give better performance with SSDs than the default MS ones. Oh & should have also linked (yet again - perhaps it would be useful to have a credited sticky on this stuff as it keeps on coming up?) to this thread from the OCZ forum as it's full of useful things for all SSDs from any manufacturer... ...where it says "this is only for the OCZ SF SSDs" though, this applies to all SF controller SSDs - obviously it's an OCZ tech forum & they've used other controllers in the past.
I'm stuck, I can't change anything in BIOS. My bios has NO options. Give it, it's a laptop but this is the most no option bios I've ever seen. I'm missing my desktop now. Does just changing the registry will do the job?
No it won't as all the registry change is effectively doing is telling Windows to install the driver on the next reboot... ...well, windows comes with all manner of device drivers & they naturally don't do anything unless you actually install something that can use them. Yeah, unfortunately laptops are a law unto themselves when it comes to bioses as you get some which are as good as decent desktop ones & others that have half an option to do something entirely useless. What i'd suggest is to (a) see if there's a bios update for your laptop as that 'might' add more functionality &, if not, (b) email the tech support for the manufacturer of it to see what they suggest. if there's no joy from either of them then ignore everything other than installing the intel rst driver... obviously assuming that you've got an intel chipset - which i forgot to mention earlier as kind of being necessary for that step to have any impact
Corsair or OCZ? The F60 and Vertex 2 are practically the same drive, and I'm going to get one or the other. The price difference is negligible too... So was just wondering about quality, support, firmware etc? Am going to be using it in OS X as well... Which has me inclined to think that most firmware updates are going to be quite tricky. How do you literally update these drives? I would imagine from some bootable disk image of some sort?
Afaik, Corsair (& other non-OCZ SSD manufacturers) are either limited to a beta f/w or a slower mass production one - so 'if' a major problem were discovered with the beta they're using then the SSD will be slowed down by future updates... ...if not then they're much of a muchness. Having said that, my opinion is that OCZ provide the best support, update the f/w very responsively to any issues, etc, etc, but i'm sure other people could say the same about Corsair, etc. i guess the biggest difference is that OCZ have a higher level of arrangement with SF & have been working with the controller for longer so they're more likely to have ironed out any issues (i've had no problems with mine). Using Windows, then there's a Windows based utility... i don't know anything about updating the f/w for Corsair, etc versions on the Mac but, according to the official forum, you can do the OCZ ones using bootcamp to run the utility. if for some reason that didn't work, you'd need to temporarily stick it in a Windows machine, though as almost all of the f/w updates are non-destructive & data agnostic then this shouldn't cause any issue - providing of course you've got access to a Windows machine naturally. Oh, & whilst waiting for something to finish did a quick price check & since that eBuyer offer has gone/they've put their prices up, it provisionally looks as though the V2 is cheaper both there & here.
Speeds are usually better (nearer to the 'headline figures') is all... Yeah, there used to be the idea that ahci was pointless for SSDs & certainly it caused instability with some drives 'back in the day' - in fact OCZ were officially advising against it in mid-2008 (this has continued to be quoted despite being out of date info for later ssds - well, the original vertex, etc out in late 2008/early 2009 worked perfectly with ahci) - however, as technology's moved on with new controllers & updated f/ws so that there is the stability, it's now proven to be beneficial. Oh, & for extra info (& a bonus 5 points perhaps - it's very late & am rambling), setting the controller &/or bios to raid also enables ahci for drives that aren't in an array - just so no one gets worried that they'll be getting slower speeds with their ssd if they also want a raid array on the same controller.
No worries but, as a quick correction, i meant to write - "Using OCZ V2s then there's a Windows based utility..." & the 'higher level of arrangement' referred to OCZ having an exclusivity agreement for mass production firmware that gave them speed advantages (hence the others using a beta version) - what's happened now between OCZ & SF with the others working around the limitation hasn't been made public which is why the first sentence is 'afaik'. Yeah, was just a bit knackered last night so perhaps not the best explanations (albeit on minor things)... ...hurray for insomnia
I just read through Corsair's own articles and they also recommend AHCI. Seems like this AHCI business might be for all SF based SSDs?
Ummmm... not sure what you're saying/asking here... Well either "yes", it's certainly not just for the V2s... Well, we were talking about trying to get your F60 on ahci weren't we (if it wasn't sensible then i'd have said so rather than trying to aid you in a misguided effort)... ...or "no", afaik the recommendation changed with the first gen2 SSDs (such as the V1) & applies to all of them (don't know about 1st gen SSDs as they're not exactly a hot topic for discussion - there 'might' have been f/w updates that sorted the stability problems), so it's not 'just' for the SF SSDs.
More so for any SSD that is AHCI compatible (ie... All of them??). It's default on all new Apple hardware which helps me out a lot... It can be a bit trickier with the many billions of variables on Windows though.
it wasn't an issue with Windows, but one with the SSDs themselves. Anyway, as said, i don't know about the Gen1 SSDs (did any or every manufacturer sort out the f/w on them so that they would work???), though sensibly no one would be buying them now as they're not only out of date tech speed-wise, but were prone to stuttering problems which really hampered their rl usage. With any Gen2 SSD there 'should' be no issues with ahci (though obviously i've not tested/checked the specs/read the forum posts/etc for every single one) & it will provide a performance boost. [NB the C300 & V2 Pro are classed as Gen2 since the former really is nowhere near using the potential of the 6Gb/s interface (esp on writes) & the latter, whilst having a 6Gb/s SAS interface, better sustained writes & encryption for enterprise usage, doesn't break the 3Gb/s barrier. Whilst there are likely to be announcements of Gen3 drives this year, it's unlike that they'll commonly appear outside of the enterprise marketplace before Q1 2011 &, as with the Gen2 drives, it will take some months before the cost falls despite the 25nm nand process being less costly - if for no other reason than the manufacturers tend to give some opportunity for the retailers to overload remaining stocks.]
Well, from all you've said, I checked every corner of my laptops extremely limited bios, and I mean extremely with a huge E, and there are no options at all, only thing you can change is system time and boot settings and that's it. That said, I won't be using AHCI on my laptop any time soon. But soon enough I'll build a new desktop and that SSD will get a transfer there and then I'll be able to follow your advice.
