Correctly setting up Hard Drive on P5B Deluxe

[leeland]

OK I am building my new system and have a silly question. When I go into the BIOS to select the SATA configuration...and I want to set up my SATA hard drive I should select AHCI or just IDE?

I would think it should be the AHCI but am not sure totally and the manual doesn't really explain it that great to me anyways...

if I select the AHCI does that mean RAID configuration? Or is that simply saying that I am defining it as a SATA hard drive vs. an IDE configuration?

Is there any performance difference?


Thanks in advance.

Leeland

 

[gramboh]

I think there are 3 settings, IDE, AHCI and RAID. AHCI allows you to use SATA2 features ilke NCQ and hot swapping. IDE is a legacy setting which makes the controller show the drives as an IDE config to the operating system. This is the easiest because you don't need to press F6 during install to put the SATA controller drivers into the install. I went with AHCI because I wanted NCQ and it is working fine, my drives benchmark in HDTach where they should. Make sure you have the Intel SATA drivers on a floppy disk (you can get them from Asus website I believe, or intel.com download section).

 

[cmdrdredd]

I just want to know one thing...why does every RAID and AHCI driver need you to install it from a floppy? Most people I know don't ever use floppy drives anymore. I never even bought one for this build. IMO it's stupid. I understand that WIndows doesn't have a driver in it for alot of them, but I just wish there was a way around having to dig up a floppy drive for 1 install.

 

[leeland]

OK...so if I want to get the drive to be installed via AHCI I have to use the SATA drivers with a floppy? And what happens when you don't have a floppy installed? Can you use a USB drive?

Also, is there any performance difference if I wanted to set it up using AHCI vs IDE?

I have two SATA Seagate 320 gb hard drives and currently they are set up on IDE for the configuration...so is that not optimal? Is there a big performance increase if you use SATA with NCQ?

I guess in a nutshell I am wondering if I am defeating the purpose of having SATA drives if they are set up on the IDE configuration...

Thanks,

Leeland

 

[leeland]

bump for any info please...