MSI z97 gaming 3 AHCI / RAID

[whitedeath_000]

I'm a noob and I want help with setting up my new PC
I've 1 [strike]SATA[/strike] SSD and 1 HDD installed
I read a lot about the AHCI / RAID and I understood almost nothing (lol) I want to know what exactly do I need to do regarding this matter in order to make my sata work effectively and how to do that.
I also have this driver "On-Board SATA AHCI/RAID Drivers" which i dont know what it does but people seem to agree that it improves the performance slightly
please help and while answering bear in mind that English is not my native language (obviously you can tell)

 

[Sinistercr0c]

SATA is not a device....its a specification (it stands for Serial ATA), so a HDD for example is either a SATA HDD or an older specification such as IDE (and SATA ports on a mother board are physically different than IDE ports). you can have SATA1, 2 or 3 HDD's....1 being the slowest/oldest spec....3 being the latest and fastest in SATA terms.

Again AHCI is a specification - The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard defined by Intel that specifies the operation of Serial ATA (SATA) host bus adapters (or in simple terms AHCI is a language HDD's can use to 'talk' to your system). AHCI is a requirement for getting the best performance out of solid state drives (SSD's)

RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) is the ability to link HDD's together in different ways. So you can for example have HDD mirroring in RAID5 as a hot backup of your primary HDD to a second HDD....there are various RAID configurations from RAID0 thru RAID6....I suggest you read up on them but the most common choices are RAID0 (for speed)or RAID5 (for data redundancy)

The best use of your time would be to Wiki these terms and read up so that you understand what they mean.

 

[whitedeath_000]

Sorry I'm dumb, I meant SSD and HDD

 

[whitedeath_000]

So since I will be using an SSD as my main with the installed OS should I use the AHCI ? and how to do that ? from the Bios ?

 

[Sinistercr0c]

Yes and yes...if you have an SSD you should set your disc to AHCI mode in BIOS....you may need to install the AHCI drivers that came on the motherboard driver CD.

 

[RobCrezz]

SATA is not a device....its a specification (it stands for Serial ATA), so a HDD for example is either a SATA HDD or an older specification such as IDE (and SATA ports on a mother board are physically different than IDE ports). you can have SATA1, 2 or 3 HDD's....1 being the slowest/oldest spec....3 being the latest and fastest in SATA terms.

Again AHCI is a specification - The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard defined by Intel that specifies the operation of Serial ATA (SATA) host bus adapters (or in simple terms AHCI is a language HDD's can use to 'talk' to your system). AHCI is a requirement for getting the best performance out of solid state drives (SSD's)

RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) is the ability to link HDD's together in different ways. So you can for example have HDD mirroring in RAID5 as a hot backup of your primary HDD to a second HDD....there are various RAID configurations from RAID0 thru RAID6....I suggest you read up on them but the most common choices are RAID0 (for speed)or RAID5 (for data redundancy)

The best use of your time would be to Wiki these terms and read up so that you understand what they mean.

Just to correct, Raid 1 is mirroring, not raid 5. Raid 5 is striping with parity, Raid 6 is striping with two parity blocks giving more redundancy. Raid 0 is just striping.

 

[Sinistercr0c]

@RobCrezz - Apologies you are correct. I was working from memory (which at my age is risky at best)