What does changing to ACHI do, if anything, to purely storage drives

Good morning,

I'm intending to buy my first SSD and to install Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.

My current BIOS will allow me to set the ACHI option which I understand is required for SSD use. I've also read that changing this setting in the BIOS from IDE to AHCI will cause my current XP Pro OS to BSOD, that in itself is not a problem as I won't be using it again.

What I would like to know and to get some assurance about is what will changing that setting do to the SATA drives, also connected to the mobo (not USB), that I use purely as storage? Will they be OK? Will I lose access to them or will they be fine?

Any help gratefully accepted.

Ben

It's a mistype in the title, I know it's AHCI

Hello ZBDMiller. Welcome to the forum.

Switching to AHCI will have no effect on your data drives. They will look and work exactly as they do now.

Switching modes only affects previously installed operating systems. It is a software problem, not anything to do with hardware or any physical change to the drive.

AHCI introduces some advanced connection features. The main one is just how the drive communicates with the controller - all behind-the-scenes stuff.

The one feature of AHCI that is noticeable to the user is the ability to "hot swap" drives. That is, connect or disconnect a drive while the PC is running.