Setting up X25-M G2 with SATA storage drive

qazwsxokmijn

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Dec 7, 2009
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Hi all. Greetings from New Zealand (anybody here also a Kiwi?). After a year of saving I am *finally* able to purchase my new i7 gear, including a 5870 and an Intel X25-M G2 80GB (which is sadly out of stock in NZ at the moment).

Now, I am quite new to the whole SSD field, but have read quite a bit on the excellent articles Anand has written. However I am still not too clear on setting it up. Can anybody please explain to me several things:

1.) How do I format the SSD to an 'out-of-the-box' state - ie, all cells completely erased? From what I understand a normal format doesn't really do it for SSDs?
2.) I have an Asus P6T motherboard, which has two SATA controllers - the Intel ICH10R and a JMicron controller. Now, I know for the best performance and TRIM support I have to set the SSD to AHCI, and that I'll be putting the SSD on SATA port 1, which is controlled by the ICH10R. Now, I cannot set the mode (IDE, AHCI etc) to individual SATA ports, so the if I set ICH10R as AHCI all the ICH10R ports will be set as AHCI. The question is, is it OK for a normal SATA HDD and SATA optical drive to be running in AHCI mode? Or will I have to use the JMicron SATA ports for the HDD and optical drive and set them as normal IDE?
3.) When installing W7, will I have to install a driver first for the AHCI mode of the SSD to work? I think I read that W7 has a built in AHCI driver for the SSD that will support TRIM. Is that true? When is it installed?
4.) And finally, can anyone direct me to a link that details ways to take care of an SSD? I have read bits and pieces all over but often people have conflicting views etc....

Thanks in advance, and I'll be putting up pics of the new build if anybody is interested. Which forum is suitable for it?
 

wgoldfarb

Senior member
Aug 26, 2006
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I'm also brand new to the whole SSD thing and I have some doubts myself, but I can answer some of your questions:

2.- I have an ASUS P5B with a JMicron controller alongside the ICH8R southbridge -- a setup very similar to your board. I also have an optical drive, a spindle HDD and an SSD, all connected to SATA ports, just like you want to do. I actually disabled my JMicron in the BIOS, and I have all three drives connected to SATA ports on the ICH8R. All my SATA ports are in enhanced AHCI mode, and everything works great. So, the answer to your second question: yes, you can absolutely connect all three drives (SSD, Spindle HDD and optical drive) in AHCI mode to the ICH10R.

3.- You do NOT have to install a separate driver for the AHCI to work in Windows 7. Windows 7 includes a built-in AHCI driver from Microsoft which worked perfectly for me. I would assume it should work for you. With Win XP you did have to provide a separate driver if you wanted to run in AHCI mode (for our boards that would be the Intel Matrix Storage drivers), but this is no longer required with Windows 7. Just go ahead and install Windows 7 normally -- the Windows 7 installer will see that you are running your drives in AHCI mode and the AHCI driver will be installed automatically. In fact, you should NOT install the Intel Matrix storage drivers because the current version does not pass the TRIM command to the SSD. So, stick with the built-in Microsoft AHCI drivers.

As for the other questions, I'm afraid I don't know the answers. I will leave those to people far more knowledgeable than me, of which there are many! ;-)

Good luck!
 

qazwsxokmijn

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Dec 7, 2009
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Cheers wgoldfarb. Your answers helped clear the major stuff up.

There's bad news for me though; in fact for the entire Australasia apparently, because we probably won't see new stock coming in until next year!
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
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1.) How do I format the SSD to an 'out-of-the-box' state - ie, all cells completely erased? From what I understand a normal format doesn't really do it for SSDs?

Some manufacturers have utilities that will do that for you, for instance Intel has their "SSD Toolbox" or whatever it is called. Also, if your drive supports Trim and you use Windows 7, things will happen automagically.
 

qazwsxokmijn

Member
Dec 7, 2009
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Some manufacturers have utilities that will do that for you, for instance Intel has their "SSD Toolbox" or whatever it is called. Also, if your drive supports Trim and you use Windows 7, things will happen automagically.
So does the toolbox allow you to completely erase the SSD from a Windows environment? Or will I have to make a boot disk?