SSD Upgrade questions

essenbe · 25 Jun 2014

There is a difference, but I doubt you will notice it one way or the other. If we can assume (which I'm pretty sure is true) tha Nvidia chipsets do not have AHCI, but you have 1 port with AHCI enabled and have an AHCI driver, it should be safe to assume you have an AHCI driver for that port. In this case it is Microsoft's, which is not that bad. I would assume that the port is specified in your manual for your motherboard and that there is a driver for it on your motherboard's web site. But, it is not that important as you already have one.

Victek · 25 Jun 2014

essenbe said:

There is a difference, but I doubt you will notice it one way or the other. If we can assume (which I'm pretty sure is true) tha Nvidia chipsets do not have AHCI, but you have 1 port with AHCI enabled and have an AHCI driver, it should be safe to assume you have an AHCI driver for that port. In this case it is Microsoft's, which is not that bad. I would assume that the port is specified in your manual for your motherboard and that there is a driver for it on your motherboard's web site. But, it is not that important as you already have one.

Thanks for the reply. It seems that for now the Microsoft driver is my only option. I've checked the EVGA website and the motherboard manual and there is no information about the extra SATA header. There is only the JMicron SATA Enable/Disable option in the BIOS. It's odd that the SSD is now detected as an ATA device with a Quick Remove Vs Performance option in the Device Manager. When the SSD was connected to one of the other SATA headers and used the Nvstor64 driver it was listed as a SCSI device with support for command queuing. Does that seem odd to you?

essenbe · 25 Jun 2014

Not really. Nvidia chipsets have no AHCI, but where you have it now does. 'Hot Plugging' is one of the features of AHCI which you didn't have before. There are a few others too. You will never use the hot plugging on your OS drive for obvious reasons, but that is one of the attributes of AHCI. So, it is not surprising. Quite frankly, I don't know much about the Nvidia chipsets other than what I've read on them. But, they are somewhat different than other chipsets which are usually either Intel or AMD. But, they do act different than most any other chipset.

Britton30 · 25 Jun 2014

Stick with the msahci driver, it is slightly better. It's the msahci that causes it to be recognized and a ATA device, but nothing to worry about.
When I had a Crucial SSD it was recognized as SCSI too, but with my Samsung 840 Pro it's a standard hard drive.

Victek · 25 Jun 2014

Britton30 said:

Stick with the msahci driver, it is slightly better. It's the msahci that causes it to be recognized and a ATA device, but nothing to worry about.
When I had a Crucial SSD it was recognized as SCSI too, but with my Samsung 840 Pro it's a standard hard drive.

Great! Thanks to you and everyone who replied

Victek · 27 Jun 2014

essenbe said:

Not really. Nvidia chipsets have no AHCI, but where you have it now does. 'Hot Plugging' is one of the features of AHCI which you didn't have before. There are a few others too. You will never use the hot plugging on your OS drive for obvious reasons, but that is one of the attributes of AHCI. So, it is not surprising. Quite frankly, I don't know much about the Nvidia chipsets other than what I've read on them. But, they are somewhat different than other chipsets which are usually either Intel or AMD. But, they do act different than most any other chipset.

You may find it interesting that I noticed during POST that the embedded JMicron SATA controller is actually using the PCIe bus and is treated as external. That would explain the "hot plugging" option in the Device Manager.

essenbe · 27 Jun 2014

I didn't know about it using the PCIe bus, but I suspected it would be for an external drive. But, it really does not matter except if the JMicron controller does not give you problems, you may get some decent speed out of it, and as long as your board can boot from a PCIe bus, you can use is as an internal drive

clsiii · 25 Feb 2015

Victek,

I have the same motherboard and chipset. I recently bought a Samsung 850 EVO SSD and in doing some research before installing it came to find out that the 790i Ultra SLI does not have SATA 6.0/Gbs capability (which I was aware of prior to purchase), but also doesn't have AHCI... I knew that I would be limited to SATA 3.0/Gbs in using this SSD, but was completely unaware that I wouldn't have the ability to place it in AHCI mode.

What has been your experience using the Jmicron? Have you tried using the SSD in IDE mode? Thanks in advance.

essenbe · 25 Feb 2015

See post #1 in this Tutorial AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

clsiii · 26 Feb 2015

Thanks essenbe. I'm aware of the process and instructions provided in the link you provided with respect to nForce boards like mine:

... nForce boards do not support AHCI (with the exception of nForce boards that include onboard graphic cards), and also don't send the TRIM command for SSDs. It can do NCQ through its controller though. The JMicron SATA ports do support AHCI, but you'd get worse performance running a HDD through these, than on the normal SATA ports.

You can uninstall the Nvidia controller though in Device Manager and install Microsoft's IDE Controller, which can send TRIM commands for SSDs.

Head to Device Manager (Open Start menu, type Device Manager), and click "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers", and you will see 3 Nvidia Serial ATA Controllers. Right click one of them and click "Properties" and go to the "Driver" tab. Click "Update Driver". Click "Browse my Computer", and then "Let me pick". You will see the option to choose "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Click this and click "Next" and let it install.

Do the same for the other two Nvidia Controllers in Device Manager and restart your system. After the controllers have installed, you will be asked to reboot again.

SSDs will now have a slight performance boost with the TRIM command, and also regular HDDs also have a slight increase as well.

The reason for my original question was to see if Victek (or others) had had better experience using the Jmicron or some other workaround. I've read the odd post saying that it increased performance slightly. Thanks.