Installing Fresh copy of Win7 on SSD with ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 mobo)

[dozerking]

Evening all. I have a quick question I wanted to know before installing my new system.

I will be using a Corsair SSD as my boot drive in my new build with an ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 mobo. Before installing Win7 64-bit, should I be selecting my SATA drives to AHCI in the bios? Or should I be setting them to IDE? Does it even matter with SSD's?




What's the upside using AHCI? Does it pose issues down the road? Very curious.

Also, if anyone is familiar with the ASRock mobo I am getting, I've been told to avoid using the Marvell controller, and stick with the Intel controller.



My parts are coming this week, so I just wanted to double check before I hit the ground running.Thanks.

 

[imsurgical]

Hello again dozerking .

Nice to see you went with your build you mentioned.

First of all AHCI I believe allows for NCQ (Native Command Queing) which helps SSD's in small random reads.

Also from what I learned from others help is it allows the driver to talk directly to the drive. So basically with AHCI enabled It just goes OS>driver>drive instead of OS>driver>interface>driver>drive. So it improves performance with SSD's but it would be counter productive in either case to use IDE mode instead of AHCI on your SSD in the BIOS.

If anyone can further help me along with the benefits or correct me in any way I would appreciate it .

Back on topic, enabling AHCI for your SSD is a good thing though and from my experience and my own SSD's have not experienced any issues in owning them while using them in AHCI, granted if you have more than 1 and raid them you will be using RAID, however for single SSD use AHCI would be a good idea.


I am using currently an ASRock Z68 Extreme 7 Gen3 so I have a good idea what your BIOS are like and yes in my opinion I would use the Intel controller as opposed to the Marvell one.

And congrats and I hope everything's great when you get all the parts in.

 

[dozerking]

great, thanks

 

[DelroyMonjo]

Do NOT use the regular intall from the supplied installation disk. You will get a Zynga install which is almost impossible to get rid of.
Extreme Tuner is OK and the X fast lan is Ok.

 

[DelroyMonjo]

That is, use Custom install

 

[RetiredChief]

As others mentioned, set bios to AHCI, use the Intel sata III ports, NOT the marvel sata 6 ports.

Install will use msahci default driver. Once instalation is complet go to intel and download and install rst driver ver 10.6. this will replace msahci with intel's driver iaSTor (it's better)

Once done download and instal/run AS SSD. Don't need to run benchmark, but in upper left it will show driver (should be iaSTor and it should also show that partition alginment is OK.

Links:
Intel RST (select operating system, then drivers) select the RST driver.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+Rapid+Storage+Technology
AS SSD: http://downloads.guru3d.com/AS-SSD-Benchmark-download-2569.html

 

[dozerking]

As others mentioned, set bios to AHCI, use the Intel sata III ports, NOT the marvel sata 6 ports.

Install will use msahci default driver. Once instalation is complet go to intel and download and install rst driver ver 10.6. this will replace msahci with intel's driver iaSTor (it's better)

Once done download and instal/run AS SSD. Don't need to run benchmark, but in upper left it will show driver (should be iaSTor and it should also show that partition alginment is OK.

Links:
Intel RST (select operating system, then drivers) select the RST driver.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+Rapid+Storage+Technology
AS SSD: http://downloads.guru3d.com/AS-SSD-Benchmark-download-2569.html

Gotcha. I grabbed these just now and put them on my usb stick. Thanks Chief