Do I need Intel RST drivers?

[Brok]

Hi folks,

I've just put together a new machine for my Dad, and all was going fine until I installed Intel RST drivers. This causes the machine to BSOD as soon as windows loads. The machine seems perfectly stable without it installed, and SSD performance is as per manufactuer's spec. I'm not using RAID so the question is, do I even need to install this? What else does it offer?

Cheers!

 

[Steampunk]

If you're seeing BSOD as Windows loads, it's likely because your computer's BIOS is probably set to AHCI or IDE, and it needs to be set to RAID if you want to use RST.

RST is primarily for RAID (0, 1, 5 or 10), but there's also a lot of other stuff in there now, such as Intel Rapid Response (SSD caching of hard drives), Rapid Start (SSD hibernation), Link Power management (disabling stuff for lower power usage), Dynamic Storage Accelerator (power optimised performance), various caching mechanisms for hard drive storage, TRIM, password protection, etc, most of which is available on newer CPUs and motherboards.

RST is quite good if you want RAID without going as far as a dedicated controller, or if you want to do anything a bit unusual (such as using a SSD as a cache for a RAID array or a big hard drive), but it's not necessary if you are not using those features or just have a single drive in your machine.

 

[wazza300]

just load as ssd benchmark,no need to run it,if green text your in ahci mode if red text your in the slower ide mode

rst drivers will slightly improve speeds over the Microsoft drivers,and it shouldn't blue screen