Intel Matrix Storage & W7 (fresh install)

hideki · 16 Aug 2009 at 14:23

Did I need to install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager with a fresh install of windows 7 (RC)?

Are there any performance benefits (or issues) for having this driver installed or should i have stuck to the built in device driver.

Motherboard is an Asus P6T Deluxe (x58), AHCI is set in the bios.

Before device manager shows:
Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller
ATA Channel X (six of these)

After installing IMSM:
Intel(R) ICH10R SATA AHCI Controller
(no entries for the ata channels)

I noticed HD Tune no longer shows the SMART status for my primary drive (the Samsung F1 320gb). My slave drive (WD Caviar Blue) is showing though.

On a related note, W7 seems to already have drivers for most of the system components, so I didnt need to install them.

DIABLO · 16 Aug 2009 at 20:45

If you have any kind of mirror array then yes as the manager verifys the integrity of the array after a bad shutdown. It can also give a heads up of a failing drive.

hideki · 17 Aug 2009 at 16:29

no raid volumes here

i take it Intel Matrix Storage Manager (which also installs the proper drivers) doesnt adversly affect performance of a non-raid setup?

fornowagain · 17 Aug 2009 at 22:17

Not at all, may even be a little faster than the MS ones.

mrk · 18 Aug 2009 at 01:19

Do you get SMART info with the Matrix Manager enabled?

On my mobo only SATA ports 0-3 act in native SATA mode so get SMART data through when AHCI is enabled. In ports 4 and 5 off the ICH10R controller (as well as GSATA 1 and 2 on the Gigabyte controller) the connected drives act in pure AHCI mode and SMART data cannot be read with Windows 7 native AHCI drivers.

hideki · 18 Aug 2009 at 15:03

Well, hd1 on port 0 the samsung has no smart data in HDtune, but only after installing the matrix storage manager.

Hd2 on port 1, the wd has smart data before and after.

I have no control over the dma modes now, and the matrix storage manager shows no smart data, although im not sure if it should or not.

mrk · 20 Aug 2009 at 03:00

Hmmm,

I installed Intel Matrix Storage Manager for Win7 x64 RC1 (using RTM) and now get full SMART details and drive info in HDTune which is great.

HDTune reports the drives are in UDMA Mode 6 though:

Whereas Intel Matrix Manager says:

HDTune is years old though so I guess it's not designed to detect the modes correctly.

Benchmarking shows:

Whereas before it was showing:

A bit better then, well....more fluid anyway.