Disadvantages of not using ACHI?

kmufc77

kmufc77

kmufc77

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Hi ive just decided to use my SSD on my 6GB sata on my mobo,im getting the speeds as advertised by Crucial ive also stop using ACHI what i was using when using 3GB sata with this drive.

The reason for not using ACHI is simply when booting up it takes a lot longer to go through the boot process screen compared to IDE.

When using IDE the computer boots to desktop in seconds ACHI takes a good minute.

So what disadvantages are there now that im not using ACHI and im using IDE with my SSD as im getting the advertised 6GB sata speeds?

Also i cannot see the Controller: Marvell 88SS9174 anyway when looking through device manager?

When clicking on "Storage Controllers:Gigabyte GBB36X controller appears which says Driver provider is JMicron Driver date:07/10/2009?

Standard AHCI ATA controller says the driver is Microsoft Driver Date :21/06/2006

Do i need to install any chipset drivers to update any of this or any other drivers ?
 
Last edited:
There is a good discussion of this topic on the Intel website. It's general and will be applicable to most SSDs, not just the Intel models.

http://communities.intel.com/message/97380#97380

To be honest I'm surprised that your machine takes that much longet to boot when controller in AHCI mode. On both my desktop and laptop, it doesn't make much of a difference at all. At least not that I've noticed anyway. I'm not using a discrete controller though.

I am guessing you are wanting to use the Marvell controller? I realise this is your SATA3 controller but it might be worth giving the Intel controller a bash. The C300 barely saturates a SATA2 controller, and the sequential speeds not really an issue on a boot drive anyway.

Saw an article a while back, over on Anand IIRC, where they compared the Marvell vs ICH10R using a SATA3 HDD and the performance of the Marvell was lacklustre. Having said that your SSD would more than likely show a small performance loss on the Intel controller but it would give you AHCI without excessive boot times, plus you could dump the MS drivers in favour of Intel's superior RST set.

Finally I'd make sure you have the drive connected to the correct controller. Sounds like you might be connected the Gigabyte SATA2 device, which unfortunately looks like it is most likely a JMicron...ack! Also try disabling any unused controllers in the BIOS which will certainly improve boot times.
 
kmufc77 said:
Hi ive just decided to use my SSD on my 6GB sata on my mobo,im getting the speeds as advertised by Crucial ive also stop using ACHI what i was using when using 3GB sata with this drive.

The reason for not using ACHI is simply when booting up it takes a lot longer to go through the boot process screen compared to IDE.

When using IDE the computer boots to desktop in seconds ACHI takes a good minute.

So what disadvantages are there now that im not using ACHI and im using IDE with my SSD as im getting the advertised 6GB sata speeds?

Also i cannot see the Controller: Marvell 88SS9174 anyway when looking through device manager?

When clicking on "Storage Controllers:Gigabyte GBB36X controller appears which says Driver provider is JMicron Driver date:07/10/2009?

Standard AHCI ATA controller says the driver is Microsoft Driver Date :21/06/2006

Do i need to install any chipset drivers to update any of this or any other drivers ?
Click to expand...

I have the UD3R which is essentially the same board as the UD5 for the most part and my board boots fast with an SSD with AHCI enabled, if you aren't using the JMicron controller than disable it in BIOS, this is speed up POST.
 
My gigabyte ex58 extreme takes an age to load the AHCI bios up about the same time and loading a RAID arry.
 
Broken Hope said:
I have the UD3R which is essentially the same board as the UD5 for the most part and my board boots fast with an SSD with AHCI enabled, if you aren't using the JMicron controller than disable it in BIOS, this is speed up POST.
Click to expand...

Hi how do i disable the Jmicron controller in the bios?
 
kmufc77 said:
Hi how do i disable the Jmicron controller in the bios?
Click to expand...

Will be in the bios somewhere, the same place you enabled AHCI, one of the GSATA's listed there will be the JMicron controller.

I don't know what's slowing you down but my system gets through POST and the AHCI bios screen in well under 10 seconds.
 
Going off on slight tangent, what would you recommend for people wanting to run an SSD on the same controller as a RAID array? Presumably leave the controller in AHCI and buy a cheap RAID controller?
 
adrichardson81 said:
Going off on slight tangent, what would you recommend for people wanting to run an SSD on the same controller as a RAID array? Presumably leave the controller in AHCI and buy a cheap RAID controller?
Click to expand...
No need for a separate RAID controller - AHCI functionality is automatically enabled when the Intel controller is in RAID mode, just leave the SSD as a "non-member disk" (or whatever your BIOS calls it). You'll still get the benefits of TRIM on the SSD, provided you use the RST 9.6 drivers or later.
 
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