Do I need to load Intels RST

[Skibo2012]

Wow. The more I look at things, the more I seem to be confusing myself. I just got 2 Samsung 840pro 128G SSDs. I am going to be reloading Win7 64bit, setting SATA to AHCI (that's what seems to be the right choice).

I am going to use one of these 840's as my OS drive. The second I will use for games that I might play more often and some utility programs.

I will then use my Raptor 150G for less played games and utilities and I have 2 1T WD Black drives for storage.

Should I even be loading the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver during install (STOR_Win7_8_11.7.0.1013_f6flpy-x64)? Don't know if I'm misunderstnding the point of RST like it does some SSD caching of the HDD which I don't think I'd want to do to save some life on the SSDs.

If I wasn't to need the above mentioned driver during Win7 install (F6 option) which drive should I use during install?

 

[taltamir]

Since you are not installing the OS on a cached drive, there is no reason to load those drives into the installation media. You can simply install them after windows has been installed and then set up whatever you want from within windows

 

[BrightCandle]

The Intel RST drivers improve performance but you don't need them as part of install. But you will want to install them when you get into windows.

 

[wansurfer]

Hi Skibo2012,

You didn't mention what motherboard you have. Though, maybe that doesn't matter so much. For my ASUS motherboard ASUS has a recommended version of IRST for certain versions of BIOS. Other motherboard manufacturer's probably do something similar- pairing a version of IRST with a version of BIOS. Intel does that for their motherboards. You mentioned the STOR_Win7_8_11.7.0.1013_f6flpy-x64 download which contains files to use for driver setup during installation of Windows. So far I've only noticed that on Intel's download site which made me wonder if you have an Intel motherboard or not. However, I've noticed that for my computer things seem to still work OK even if I don't use the version of IRST that ASUS recommends for my BIOS and instead get a slightly more up to date version of IRST directly from Intel's download site.

 

[Skibo2012]

I have an Asus P6X58D Premium MB with a i7 950 CPU. I think I will try loading the above mentioned drive during Windows install and see what happens.

 

[Skibo2012]

Also, I am not going to install the post Windows 7 install IRST software. I don't think I would need that if I am not running RAID setup. Is there other things you can get out of the post Win IRST program install?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Also, I am not going to install the post Windows 7 install IRST software. I don't think I would need that if I am not running RAID setup. Is there other things you can get out of the post Win IRST program install?

You dont need it. But it will improve performance abit.

 

[taltamir]

Should I even be loading the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver during install (STOR_Win7_8_11.7.0.1013_f6flpy-x64)? Don't know if I'm misunderstnding the point of RST like it does some SSD caching of the HDD which I don't think I'd want to do to save some life on the SSDs.

It isn't going to do caching unless you explicitly set it up to do caching

 

[wansurfer]

Skibo2012,

Back when this caching feature was new there was something about it that confused me for a while. It was Intel's use of the acronyms IRST and ISRT. Intel Rapid Storage Technology is what we were discussing in this thread and it will help improve the performance of your computer's hard drives with or without caching enabled. Though with IRST installed but without caching enabled the difference in performance may not be noticeable to you or noticeable but minimal. Intel Smart Response Technology (ISRT) is a feature included with IRST and is just Intel's fancy name for using an SSD as a cache. It seems like Intel has the same talent for choosing names for things as Microsoft. I mentioned the difference between the two acronyms in case that helps you somehow.

 

[Coup27]

You definitely need the RST software package. I did a test once. I installed a fresh installation in AHCI mode with the F6 driver pre-loaded at the installation stage and took a benchmark. I then installed the software package and rebooted twice and took another benchmark. The scores with the software package installed were much higher than with just the F6 driver installed.

I did make a thread at the time with the benchmark numbers but nobody was able to shed any light on why what extra the package did that the F6 driver didn't.

 

[bbinnard]

After reading this thread I just installed the RST 11.7.0.1013 drivers on my W7n7-64 system running on an old ASUS P6T motherboard. My boot drive is an 840 Pro and the installation of the updated RST drivers went smooth as silk. I ran the installation from the EXE file as a regular Windows program - no sweat at all.

My previous driver version was 11.6.something, so I doubt I'll notice any significant performance change, but at least I'm up to date.

 

[Old Hippie]

My previous driver version was 11.6.something, so I doubt I'll notice any significant performance change, but at least I'm up to date.

It's never made a difference on my machine either....and I tried it numerous times.

It's just a program and shouldn't make any difference.