Getting ready to install Win 7 on SSD

AHCI enables hot swapping and hyper-threading which you can probably do without. If you want to pursue it then Google and read all about it and query tech support until you get what you need.

Performance doesn't seem to improve by all reports.

Bare Foot Kid said:

xceebeex said:

Well it doesn't look like AHCI is enabled by default so I am not sure what to do from here. Samsung decided to remove the option in the BIOS to enable AHCI for some strange reason. I might be able to downgrade the firmware to the version that allows me to enable it, but do I really have to?

If I just install the drivers would that essentially enable it?

If there is not an option in the PC BIOS to enable AHCI then it's not possible; it'll be ok without it.

What is weird is that in previous versions of the BIOS there was a hidden set of settings that had an option to enable AHCI but for some reason that no longer exists in th erecent BIOS updates. So if I wanted AHCI, I would have to downgrade to a version that supports it? Obviously everything else is compatible since it was an option at one point, so I was hoping that if I installed the drivers it would be recognized as AHCI.

Everything I have read says that AHCI is highly recommended (at least for the drive I have).

Petey7 said:

ceebee, have you actually tried installing it yet and seeing how it goes?

No, I have not. I would like to get it right the first time rather than having to install Windows multiple times. I know people say to not worry about the number of write cycles a SSD does (since it is a limited number), but I don't want to do a bunch of installs before I even get to use the drive. So ideally, I would like to get it "right" the first time.

So even if AHCI has virtually neglible performance gains, it is certainly as good as IDE mode so I would rather go straight to AHCI mode if at all possible.

Another little pice of info that I found out is that with the drive I plan on installing, the Firmware updater won't work unless the drive is in AHCI mode. So that is yet another reason I would like to get it in AHCI mode.

Looks like I might have to downgrade my BIOS and see if I can enable AHCI and get it to work.

Petey7 said:

I would take the time to look into what the latest BIOS update was supposed to do. Usually the updates are meant to fix something the was wrong with the previous version or add functionality.

That is normally what I would think, but in this case it looks like they also take away functionality. I will try and find info on what each update did and see if any of them are necessary for stuff that I use.