Is AHCI necessary with SSD?

I just built a machine with a 120gb SSD and a 1 tb standard Sata drive. Is it necessary to have AHCI turned on? I can't seem to get a solid answer from anyone. One says turn it on, and another says don't use it. What's right? Many thanks to all.

rnuhouse said:

I just built a machine with a 120gb SSD and a 1 tb standard Sata drive. Is it necessary to have AHCI turned on? I can't seem to get a solid answer from anyone. One says turn it on, and another says don't use it. What's right? Many thanks to all.

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If your ssd doesn't have any problems wiuth AHCI on, then definately use AHCI. It will help the performance of your ssd.

Necessary? No
Recommended? Yes

If you just built a machine, that would have been the time to enable AHCI before installing Windows. AHCI allows Windows 7 to detect and configure the SSD properly, such as disabling defrag, etc. You also should check to see if your drive has it's own garbage collection function, because I believe TRIM needs AHCI to work.

It's been quite a few years since I have been using IDE mode. One of the first things I do on a new system is enabled AHCI.

Performance won't be affected though. If there is any difference, it wouldn't be enough to be noticeable.

This will help you enable AHCI in Windows 7 if you have already installed windows and want to turn on AHCI: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html

windude99....that link you sent me to enable AHCI after OS installation. Does it activate AHCI for all the ports? Doesn't it screw up your optical drives?

rnuhouse said:

windude99....that link you sent me to enable AHCI after OS installation. Does it activate AHCI for all the ports? Doesn't it screw up your optical drives?

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That was for if you had already installed your os. I have never heard of AHCI screwing up the optical drives. You have toi ativate AHCI in the bios, then you install the OS. If the OS is installed, then you do the registry tweak, then you enable AHCI in the bios. Also, if you turn on AHCI, it will enable it for all of your SATA ports. if you have IDE ports, then they will run in IDE mode.

AHCI makes a big difference in benchmarks.

In real world usage, very different results.

For me, I turn on AHCI where I can and if it makes sense. For example, when I first built my machine and put in my SSD, there was nearly an 8 second delay during the POST when it was bringing up the AHCI devices. For me, I didn't feel that I could gain back those 8 seconds that I had to wait on each and every boot. Therefore, I stuck with IDE mode.

A while back, Gigabyte came out with an update that reduced my 8 second delay to approx a 2 second delay. I felt this was more reasonable and it's possible that over the course of the day I could earn back those 2 seconds.

So, I say it's personal.

I went though quite a hassle with my setup. I found a Tutorial that shows you how to move the Users Folder, Program Files Folder and Program Files (X86) from my 120gb SSD C:, to my 1tb Seagate Barracuda D:. If you ever do it, don't use your full name for the second profile. I spent a day typing my name in all the registry edits. The article was misleading about registry edits.
How to: Setup SSD boot drive with secondary Hard disc optimization

rnuhouse said:

I went though quite a hassle with my setup. I found a Tutorial that shows you how to move the Users Folder, Program Files Folder and Program Files (X86) from my 120gb SSD C:, to my 1tb Seagate Barracuda D:. If you ever do it, don't use your full name for the second profile. I spent a day typing my name in all the registry edits. The article was misleading about registry edits.
How to: Setup SSD boot drive with secondary Hard disc optimization

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Yea, I don't recommend moving your user profile to a different location than the default location.