Motherboards AHCI

Is there any significant performance boost from switching from IDE to AHCI in the bios? Or, as I have read the RAID setting also contains AHCI, can you turn on RAID even if you only have one hard drive?

Thanks for replying

 

Switching to AHCI or RAID will give a performance increase if you're using an SSD, but I don't think it will if you've a single HDD.

You won't get any RAID benefits with a single HDD, only if you add a second and reinstall the OS.

What OS are you using? AHCI requires drivers and I've heard of it causing BSOD in XP. In later OSs you will still likely have to make a registry change to avoid an OS reinstall.

Run Registry Editor
- Go to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
- Change the "Start" value to 0
- Reboot and go to BIOS immediately
- Set BIOS to AHCI

All AHCI gives you is hot-swapping capability and NCQ (native command queuing) which can benefit some multi-threading applications.

 

I am using windows7 Home Premium 64bit, I do intend on getting an SSD in the near future as well.

 

i personally would always use ahci mode, with current sata2 hdd their is a little performance increase plus if your planning on getting an ssd then definately enable ahci mode.
this article might help
http://expertester.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/ahci-vs-ide-–-benchmark-advantage/

 

Thanks, that did help.

I have just enabled it so thanks for help.

 

no probs at all mate

 

I have a question, with SSD's, do you have to enable AHCI? I'm just waiting for the final parts of my build which includes the c300 ssd.

 

U dont have to turn on AHCI but like others said - u will see a hit in performance

 

No it's not essential... but you will get a much better performance from your SSD with AHCI enabled.

 

+repped for this!

i...erm..."forgot" to set my second RAID controller to AHCI before installing Win7 and ive been putting off doing anything about it because i thought id have to reinstall.

followed the above, win7 recognized the drive and installed the drivers, restarted, and hey-presto i can now "safely remove" my primary hard drive

but it sets me up for future RAID or SDD upgrades

 

Yeah, that was my thoughts exactly.

 

AHCI on its own doesn't exactly give a performance boost, but it's a "recommended thing to do", if you understand what I mean. It lets Windows talk to the drives in a more native manner, hopefully reducing problems. Besides, NCQ might give a performance increase in certain applications.

 

AHCI is always preferrable. Contrary to popular belief it's also possible to retrofit in Windows XP even if you didn't provide drivers during the Windows installation. I know, because I did it. And there've been no BSoDs because of it.

*However*, there have been reports that there can be issues with CD/DVD writers/readers.