BIOS Settings GA-EP35-DS4

[ztoom]

Just a quick question: What setting do I want to use in the bios for the Onboard SATA controller: SATA RAID/AHCI Mode (Intel ICH9R) do I want : Disabled, AHCI, or RAID? I am not setting up any RAID array or anything. But want to make sure I am getting SATA performance out of my drives.

Any help, Thanks!

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: BIOS Settings GA-EP35-DS4

SATA RAID/AHCI Mode
AHCI

SATA Port 0-3 Native Mode
(Enabled for XP and Up)

The above will put drives in AHCI mode
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SATA RAID/AHCI Mode
Disabled

SATA Port 0-3 Native Mode
(Enabled for 2000 and Up)

The above will make drives In IDE mode

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There are a few things to think of here. The first being, do you have SATA II drives, if so REMOVE the jumper on the back of the drive to enable SATA 3GB/s Mode (Or put it in a upward setting so it is not "Jumping" anything)

Second, AHCI this loads a seperate BIOS for AHCI each time your Computer starts, and slows down boot time. I have noticed that only sometimes this is faster then IDE mode so you will have to test this, if you want. Either way you will HAVE TO install the SATA driver during Operating System Installation

Finally it also depends on the drives you are using, some do not support NCQ which is the only real benefit of AHCI aside from hot swapping, and some do NCQ no matter what the setting. So it is all up to you if you want to install your OS twice to test which is faster.

I personally Have tested the Intel and Gigabyte controllers and found the Gigabyte one faster, but I have only used the RAID feature on each so I could not say FOR SURE if RAID is not used which is faster