AHCI mode

Wishmaster · 27 Dec 2009

RogerR said:

Wishmaster said:

If the results are the same or minimal, Id just use IDE for compatability reasons.

Compatibility with ..?

All my drives are SATA.

For the sake of simplicity. To prevent switching back and forth when needed.
Although this is very rare, and quite easy to manage, some prefer not to be bothered with it.

As Qdos said, and i agree, theres really no dis-advantage of AHCI.

I've only ran into a couple instances where it was a issue, and even then no big deal.
1 specific example was a firmware update for my SSD.
I had to enable IDE mode, do the firmware update from my USB stick (outside Windows), then re-enable AHCI before rebooting back to Windows.

So there may be small issues such as this. So just be aware. Others may not have the same experience.

As far as 99.9999% of everything else, in my experience, no issues at all.

I apologize for the confusion, I should have been more clear by what i meant.

Bare Foot Kid · 08 Feb 2010

I just wanted to add a link to this new tutorial here at Seven Forums!

AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

pparks1 · 08 Feb 2010

Qdos said:

There's no disadvantage to AHCI. No downsides at all. NCQ has been shown to have it's advantages - but for anyone who possesses an external SATA dock or drive, the hotswap ability is a quintessential feature.

I disagree. When i turn on AHCI on my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R under both my SSD and my Western Digital Caviar Black, my speeds are slightly slower under AHCI.

Plus, there is an 8 second additional delay (during my already long enough 20 second Power on to complete POST) to initialize my controller in AHCI mode. I'm not convinced in an average hour or two of use that I make up that 8 seconds that I lose for sure during each and every boot.