[SOLVED] AHCI vs IDE mode for laptop

[vampelle]

I have Hp8760w laptop and it was running with builtin HDD of 500gb till today.
i just bought adata su750 512gb for the purpose of windows, games, regular usages, offices, etc and my existing will be a storage drive for my collection of pictures and movies along with music.

As i was finding my bios version, and if it can handles Sata III, i notice they were option of AHCI , IDE and Raid mode.
Currently it is in IDE mode and if i need to change it, i will have to install the windows, which i am going to do anyway since the windows will be in ssd now. (doing a fresh install not transfer).

What the advantage of AHCI vs IDE. as i know they are few things but does it have real advantage for ssd and hdd?
My old sata HDD is SATA II and my new ssd is SATA III , should i change the mode from IDE to AHCI or let it be at IDE.


any quick help will help me to start formatting, and installing windows in my new ssd.
thanks

 

[dorsai]

Use AHCI as that's the standard for SATA drives developed by Intel...IDE is the old standard from prior to SATA when computers still used ribbon cables.

Make sure to set up the new drive to use GPT instead of MBR if you'll want to move it to Windows 11 at some point.

 

[vampelle]

Use AHCI as that's the standard for SATA drives developed by Intel...IDE is the old standard from prior to SATA when computers still used ribbon cables.

Make sure to set up the new drive to use GPT instead of MBR if you'll want to move it to Windows 11 at some point.

is they any real differences between them.
thank you for clearly why i should install GPT, luckily i just formatted it in GPT as single drive. will now make them into two partition.
also how can i convert my others SATA II drive from MBR to GPT. and on my desktop hdd SATA III which is on MBR

 

[geofelt]

AHCI is a subset of raid.
You want the AHCI option, you likely do not want raid in any form.
The benefit is that it allows the use of the trim command which will improve ssd performance and endurance.

 

[dorsai]

is they any real differences between them.
thank you for clearly why i should install GPT, luckily i just formatted it in GPT as single drive. will now make them into two partition.
also how can i convert my others SATA II drive from MBR to GPT. and on my desktop hdd SATA III which is on MBR

Many drives show only minimal speed increases for AHCI over IDE...Samsung is the odd ball here though as Samsung drives will perform almost twice as fast in some cases using AHCI. Regardless of speed, as geoflet stated above using IDE can also limit SSD trim functions.

Partitioning in GPT is really only necessary for the boot drive...you can mix MBR in with GPT without any issue. Though it's probably a good idea to just get in the habit now of only using GPT since it has better partition recovery options than MBR if something goes sideways.