Should I Use The Amd Sata Controller Driver Instead Of The Standard Ahci Controller Driver

1. Sata Ahci Controller Driver Windows 10
2. Amd Sata Controller Driver Update
3. Amd Sata Controller Windows 10

Download the latest Standard SATA AHCI Controller driver for your computer's operating system. All downloads available on this website have been scanned by the latest anti-virus software and are guaranteed to be virus and malware-free. I wondered about this for awhile too, however I think it is distributed through microsoft now. Device manager shows AMD SATA AHCI controller and driver provided by AMD. The two standard controller are the two extra controllers I have for esata and 2 extras not on SB.

In order to manually update your driver, follow the steps below (the next steps):

1. Extract the .cab file to a folder of your choice
2. Go to Device Manager (right click on My Computer, choose Manage and then find Device Manager in the left panel), or right click on Start Menu for Windows 10 and select Device Manager
3. Right click on the hardware device you wish to update and choose Update Driver Software
4. Choose to select the location of the new driver manually and browse to the folder where you extracted the driver
5. If you already have the driver installed and want to update to a newer version got to 'Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer'
6. Click 'Have Disk'
7. Browse to the folder where you extracted the driver and click Ok

About SATA / AHCI / RAID Driver:

When you install an operating system, SATA settings (be it AHCI, RAID, or IDE mode) are detected from the BIOS. If you want to change from one mode to another after the OS has been applied, appropriate drivers are required.
Bear in mind that if you modify these settings without installing proper files first, the operating system will not be able to boot until changes are reverted or required drivers are applied.
To perform the latter task, get the package, run the available setup and follow the instructions displayed on-screen for a complete installation. Afterwards, perform a system reboot so that all changes take effect, enter BIOS menu, and set the SATA option to the mode that best describes the newly applied drivers.
So, if you intend to modify the SATA settings to the mode described by this release, click the download button, and make the desired changes. In addition to that, don't forget to constantly check with our website so that you don't miss a single new release.

COMPATIBLE WITH:

Windows 10 64 bit

file size:

76 KB

filename:

20813326_f681aa5bf447943de40b631a47d79c7261fe4d81.cab

CATEGORY:

Motherboard

It is highly recommended to always use the most recent driver version available.
Try to set a system restore point before installing a device driver. This will help if you installed an incorrect or mismatched driver.
Problems can arise when your hardware device is too old or not supported any longer.

I've noticed in the BIOS settings of the newer PCs I own that I can configure the drive controller work either in AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) mode, or else in IDE mode.

I'm suspecting that AHCI 'performs' better, but I really don't know much about that from a practical standpoint. However, I've also noticed that certain programs (e.g. Ghost 2003) simply don't detect my hard drives if I choose AHCI mode. (AHCI = A Heck of Compatibility Issues?)

So ... why does AHCI exist, why should I care and want to use it, and why/when should I not want to use it? Are there features of newer hard drives that require AHCI, and do they otherwise dumb themselves down when running in IDE mode?

6 Answers

You can see AHCI as the language which the controller uses to speak with the system. The disk can't see if AHCI is being used or IDE emulation. If you use AHCI, all Serial ATA features are available, while you don't need any drivers specific to your controller.

To actually use AHCI, the OS (whether that's Windows, Linux or even Ghost) has to have an AHCI driver. Windows Vista and 7 include the driver, but don't install it if the boot drive's controller doesn't have AHCI enabled. Similarly, the IDE driver doesn't get installed if the IDE controller is disabled. That's why you can't just toggle the setting in the BIOS on an already installed Windows system.

Ghost 2003 was released in 2002, a few years before the AHCI specification was completed. It's hardly surprising that Ghost 2003 doesn't support AHCI. Apparently the latest enterprise version of Ghost can run in a boot environment based on either Windows or Linux, so it's likely that version does support AHCI.

Excerpt: Advantage of AHCI

1. Hot-Plugging
2. Native Command Queuing (might improve computer/system/hard disk responsiveness, espcially in multi-tasking environment
   ...
   

Verdict:

These extensive benchmarks clearly show to us, AHCI (NCQ) definitely could improve computer system responsiveness, transfer rate, number of IO per second and the list goes on.

Here in 2012, per this performance comparison, it doesn't seem to be urgent for a single user workstation. However, AHCI is a better and more modern option and you should always use it when you can.

From that article:

• If your application requires hot-plug drive support or redundant disks, then AHCI is the only choice.

• IDE mode can occasionally benefit from slightly faster read and write speeds in some tests.

• TRIM support works in both modes fine

• Overall, most SSD drives deliver better performance in AHCI mode, but it is not night and day.

How do you know you're using IDE or AHCI? Go to Device Manager and expand the hard drive controllers. If you see 'AHCI' in there, you are using AHCI.

Sata Ahci Controller Driver Windows 10

The good news is that you can switch from IDE mode to AHCI in Windows 7 or Vista without reinstalling or even opening your PC case. Here's the MSFT KB article on how to do so.

1. Press Win+R key to open the Run prompt.
2. Type in Regedit and press Enter to open Registry Editor.
3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlset/Services/msahci
4. On the right hand side, right click on 'Start' and then 'Modify'.
5. Input 0 in the 'Value data' field (hexadecimal), the clik OK.
6. Close Registry Editor.
7. Restart the computer.Press and hold the Delete while the computer boots up to enter BIOS setup. Your computer might use a different key, like F2 or something else. Please refer to your computer manual.
8. In BIOS setup, select 'Integrated Peripherals' and put the marker where it says 'SATA RAID/AHCI Mode'. Now use the + and - keys or Page Up and Page Down keys to change the value from 'Disabled' to 'AHCI'. This refers to recent versions of Award BIOS system. Your BIOS settings might be different. Please refer to your computer manual.
9. Press F10 to save the changes. Press Y if you're asked to confirm.

Why NOT use AHCI (I should've posted this few years back, as now this is a bit less relevant):

It may work great on/with recent hardware but this hasn't always been the case.You'll want to try it but if you find any mysterious issues it's good to remember to test without it. Some issues I encountered in past: failure to detect certain HDD models, bugs in Intel drivers causing crashes in some scenarios (they're prob fixed by now but I haven't tested latest versions extensively), jerky mouse, glitches in audio etc.

The point is, the legacy IDE has been tried and tested. AHCI and its features have matured over past few years but there may still exist some rare scenarios where, like plane crashes, many things need to happen in certain way/order for the plane to crash. These type of things will be resolved in time, but if you want to play safe, AHCI may need few more years. There's still new AHCI drivers released rather frequently and it's not all just new features. I saw someone who tried various versions say there can also be performance differences.

If you appreciate what's known a 'known quantity' and 'tried and tested' then maybe you'll want to think twice about AHCI. And so far the time I spent diagnosing bugs and testing the performance ... I do love being the free QA department for Intel. If they had actually put a 'beta' or something somewhere that would've atleast warned me to stay away, but I foolishly thought their AHCI drivers and Option ROM's etc were as solid as the CPU's.

With consumer desktop HDD's and SSD, my own research suggests that to benefit from AHCI you'll want a 6 GB/s SATA port and SSD, or you'll want to use HDD thats known to show improvement with NCQ. I've tried Samsung, WD, Maxtor consumer SATA HDD with the AHCI and in my system there was no performance improvement, the opposite infact for some scenarios that are typical for desktop workstation IO patterns.

The article linked above has got partially different results from mine, and most of the issues I mentioned have no doubt been fixed by now, but keep this post in mind when getting excited about new innovation in storage technology. The developers testing & QA may have been severely limited compared to what PC hardware you can use with the new technology.

Amd Sata Controller Driver Update

I recently installed a SSD drive in my seven year old laptop. The SSD drive scores 200 in the AS SSD test program when running in IDE-mode. In AHCI-mode the score was 1250!And that has certainly brought the old PC back to life. The difference is HUGE!

If you want to try this too then start checking that your BIOS has the possibility to switch to AHCI-mode.

You can easily make this change on an already installed Windows. There are many articles on the net about this, so i won't get deeper into this.

You can't switch modes between IDE and AHCI on a Windows system that already has the OS on it otherwise the HDD fails to boot and you get an error 'INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE'... at least in Windows 10. I found out the hard way when resetting the BIOS defaults and it wouldn't boot and had to re-install the entire OS to get it to work again, only to be told by a friend later that all I had to do was put the SATA mode back to IDE again :-/

Amd Sata Controller Windows 10

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