Got the SSD installed, however ran into a little hiccup...

[Bacstar]

Last night I got the SSD installed, went into BIOS setup and discovered that the internal SATA port (5 internal Sata/1 external esata) I had available only had 2-options RAID & IDE mode. I did go ahead with the Windows 7 install, and TRIM is working in IDE mode based on a CMD line query I ran.

It's an ASUS Crosshair III. So I have ports 1-4 set to RAID for my 2-raid arrays, and because of that, 5-6 can only be set to RAID/IDE. I can only set ACHI(?) by breaking up the RAID.

I'm considering any options that are available. I can break up the arrays, and just have a bunch of disks for ACHI? I can get another PCIe SATA for more sata ports, however, I imagine, that will throw-in some additional considerations.

Either way I go, I'll have to do a reinstall again or maybe a backup recovery, so I'm wondering if it's worth the trouble to get ACHI working?

 

[nanaki333]

setting raid should turn ahci on by default on non-raid raided drives in remaining ports. intel's storage manager even passes TRIM along through SSDs connected this way.

 

[Bacstar]

I did verify TRIM was working after I got Win7 installed, so I should be good to go even though the port is set to IDE? I did try leaving at RAID, but then the system didn't recognize the drive...hmmm now that I think about it I didn't have the raid drivers installed at the time...

 

[nanaki333]

yessir. you're golden! TRIM can't work without AHCI

 

[Bacstar]

yessir. you're golden! TRIM can't work without AHCI

Great!!! Thanks.

Now I need to go find me an EIDE dvd drive. I guess I killed mine last night with all the reinstalls

 

[DirkGently1]

yessir. you're golden! TRIM can't work without AHCI

TRIM works in ID, AHCI and non-member RAID.

 

[nanaki333]

i stand corrected

TRIM is non-specific to either SATA controller mode, and will work equally well in both IDE and AHCI-mode. Benchmark Reviews will soon publish a detailed report that illustrates the recovery levels for each SSD controller tested here.

 

[deimos3428]

Leave the setting for ports 1-4 as "RAID", as you've got RAIDs running on them.

To get AHCI on port 5, set ports 5-6 to "RAID" in the BIOS -- but don't configure any RAID for them. TRIM will still work.

 

[Bacstar]

I did a little reading on the ASUS boards, and some trial and error runs last night. I got everything working without reinstalling Windows 7 again.

1. Made some Regedit changes in Windows 7. (The 2nd setting was already at 0)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV\ - "Start" = 0
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide\ - "Start"= 0
2. Rebooted
3. Went into BIOS. set both my ports (1-4) and (5-6) to RAID.
3. Went to the RAID config screen, and attempted to build a new raid. Rebooted again (not sure if this made a difference), but now my SSD now shows up in the list of drive arrays.
4. After signing into Windows 7, I had a message that Settings have changed and needed to reboot again.
5. everything seems to be working now.