Drew wrote:
Forgive the screwup as I accidentally multiposted instead of crossposted.
On my D975xbx2 motherboard system, I look in device manager under disk
drives and it lists 4 drives listed below
Intel SSDSA2CW120G3 AS MY C: DRIVE
Intel SSDSA2M040G2GC AS MY L: DRIVE
Seagate ST3160811AS ATA Device
Seagate ST3160811AS ATA Device
All these drives are showing with the same Microsoft driver version of
6.1.7600.16385 dated 6/21/2006.
Stupid question but is that normal or should I be using a Intel driver
here?
Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers I have listed below
ATA channel 0
ATA channel 0
ATA channel 1
All with the same Microsoft driver version 6.1.7601.17514
Should it not be a Intel driver?
Below that is Intel(R)ICH7 Family ultra ATA storage controllers-27df
That is a Intel driver dated 8/5/2009 with a version 9.1.1.1016 not sure
about a update.
Below that is a Intel(R)N10/ICH7 family serial ATA storage controller-27c0
That is a Intel driver dated 8/5/2009 and version 9.1.1.1016 once again
not sure about a update
All these do not seem right as there must be a newer driver but am I
looking for a storage controller driver or chipset driver? and as for
the disk drive drivers should there not be a Intel driver?
The driver is probably msahci (a Microsoft creation) and that driver does two things.
It supports AHCI plus hot plug on SATA ports, but also supports
the TRIM command for SSD drives.
An Intel driver would be something like iastor or iastorv (or later, RST).
The Intel driver typically supports AHCI (non-RAID) and RAID control
of the Intel ports. It's the same driver package, and what
gets installed, is a function of the BIOS setting. The driver
uses Plug and Play info (VEN/DEV) to figure out what should get
installed. And you have the option there, of changing from AHCI to
RAID, and doing RAID migration. A question there would be, whether
TRIM is supported in a particular Intel driver version or not.
Intel has changed the name of their driver to RST or Rapid Storage,
so it goes by more than one name (depending on vintage).
The Windows 7 DVD may have msahci from Microsoft, iastorv (version
of iastor first released during Vista timeframe). And if you install
a download from the Intel site, that would be different iastor (or RST),
and also affect what happens if you reset the drivers when changing
BIOS modes.
(Driver re-arm: I think there are a couple more registry entries
besides the ones listed in this article... This is what you use, if
you change the BIOS storage port settings, in an attempt to change
drivers.)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976
I can't remember all the details now, as there hasn't been a disk
controller question around here for some time.
If you're running msahci, you're getting TRIM, and not getting
RAID. And maybe that's good enough as it is. I don't know right off
hand, whether the Intel driver would be better at that stuff
or not. The Intel drivers have had a few issues along the way,
and if you check the Intel Community forums, you can get
some idea which release is "safe" to use. Another place you could
look, is where the OCZ Technology forums are located, as they have
some general articles about "tuning" a new SSD purchase, what
Windows features to turn off, what Windows features turn themselves
off, and what drivers work the best. So you can find web fora, with
pretty dedicated efforts on the topic. A typical enthusiast, might
be trying to run their SSDs in some kind of RAID, and worrying
about whether they're getting TRIM enabled or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM
Paul