AHCI? Worth it?

eXalin · 23 Oct 2010 at 22:52

Does ACHI give a noticable performance gain? How would I go about activating it? through the bios?

any problems that could occur by using it?

rpstewart · 24 Oct 2010 at 10:16

Unless you're running an SSD then AHCI offers little real world performance benefit over IDE mode.

If you do enable it on a system where Windows was installed using IDE mode then it'll blue screen on boot because you need a different SATA controller driver for AHCI mode. There are guides out there which show how to swap the driver over beforehand but they can be a bit fiddly.

Metroid · 24 Oct 2010 at 11:38

Yes, go for it as you can plug and unplug hard drives anytime. Also performance increases a bit.

PhillyDee · 24 Oct 2010 at 11:50

Is there actually a measurable performance increase while using an SSD in a single disc system? I have always wondered. I have all my files on a server, nothing apart from programs are installed on the SSD.

rpstewart · 24 Oct 2010 at 12:07

Metroid said:
Also performance increases a bit.

The only potential performance benefit that AHCI provides is Native Command Queueing (NCQ) support. On a desktop system the queue depth very rarely gets to the point where NCQ can make any positive difference. In fact under some circumstances it's actually a hinderance.