Who else uses AHCI for SATA ?

mrk · 22 Aug 2009 at 17:21

I just hotswapped a DVDRW drive from my PC which I always wondered about and devided to pull the plug today

I recently enabled AHCI (and switched the registry flag to enable the msahci driver in Windows) as well as installed Matrix Storage Manager to allow SMART and hotswapping.

I can see myself using this feature a lot over the coming months with bluray drives and random harddisks

GhostlyPea · 22 Aug 2009 at 17:23

I had it on but it was causing so many pain in the arse problem I just had to go back to IDE mode =/

- Pea0n

asim18 · 22 Aug 2009 at 17:36

I've had it enabled from day 1 with my current pc.

JonJ678 · 22 Aug 2009 at 17:37

I use this. Hangover from using esata I suppose. Linux seems to prefer it, though I rarely hotswap drives out of general paranoia anyway

Lee · 22 Aug 2009 at 17:44

Can you just switch this on in the BIOS without any problem ?

RJC · 22 Aug 2009 at 18:00

Lee said:
Can you just switch this on in the BIOS without any problem ?

You will need to do some reg changes in windows other wise you will get BSOD, I did on mine.

Been running ACHI for quite a while aand not had any problems.

mrk · 22 Aug 2009 at 18:02

Just one reg entry change for Vista and 7 users, XP users must install drivers as it's not natively supported.

Lee · 22 Aug 2009 at 18:06

What's the Vista reg change ?

mrk · 22 Aug 2009 at 18:11

Ok:

AHCI mode brings 3 main advantages:

1. Supports NCQ (Native Command Queuing) allowing SATA drives to accept more than one command at a time and dynamically reorder the commands for maximum efficiency.
2. Supports hot plugging of devices
3. Supports staggered spin ups of multiple hard drives at boot time

The registry tip + more info is here: http://expertester.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/how-to-enable-ahci-without-reformating/

Lee · 22 Aug 2009 at 18:40

Cheers mrk, I'm keen on the hot plug capability.