Samsung SSD and SATA BIOS setting

[goombawaho]

I put a Samsung EV0 840 mSATA SSD into my laptop and I noticed when I ran the Samsung Magician software that it says the BIOS is not configured in AHCI mode, which Samsung also says is optimal. See pictures. Sure enough, the BIOS is set to "RAID ON" as default out of the box. Performance is great - look at benchmarks.

Wondering if it's worth it to switch over to AHCI mode and having to do regedit to load the AHCI driver. It's super fast and the benchmarks are on target.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[Nelviticus]

I believe Intel's RAID mode for SATA is a superset of AHCI, i.e. it's AHCI plus some other stuff. However the latest version of Samsung Magician doesn't like drives being in RAID mode - either that or it doesn't like RAID mode under Windows 8+.

I say this because my PC has a Samsung SSD 830 and runs Windows 7 and my SATA mode is set to RAID (I also have a pair of mechanical hard drives in a RAID so I need this). I recently upgraded to Windows 8.1 and Samsung Magician reported that it couldn't work properly because the drive wasn't in AHCI mode. I never figured out whether this was down to the version of Magician or running under Windows 8.1 as I ended up restoring to Windows 7, where it works perfectly.

If you're not actually using the RAID features then you can leave the SATA setting at AHCI.

Nelviticus

 

[goombawaho]

Sorry for the huge picture by the way!!!

I believe Intel's RAID mode for SATA is a superset of AHCI

That's what I thought as well from some reading but the Magician software is apparently not cool with that.

I'm in RAID mode as the laptop came that way out of the box. I'm using Windows 7 and Magician is complaining about it NOT being in AHCI mode, so are you saying your Magician software is NOT complaining under Windows 7?

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[Nelviticus]

That's correct, under Windows 7 - where I'm running SSD Magician 3.1 - it doesn't complain about being in RAID mode. When I upgraded to Windows 8.1 and SSD Magician 4.5, it did complain.

I'm at home now so I'm just going to upgrade this 3.1 install to the latest and see what happens.

Nelviticus

 

[Nelviticus]

The latest version (4.5) shows me the same info as you get: that I need to be in AHCI mode for best performance. I also get the same message about not being able to detect SATA interface details.

To be honest I think that's a fault with Samsung's software. You don't need SSD Magician for daily operation, it's mainly useful for people who buy a new SSD and clone their old hard drive to it. It helps them configure things that Windows would have configured itself if it had been installed fresh on an SSD rather than a mechanical drive.

Note that if you do change the BIOS/UEFI setting to AHCI your system probably won't boot. There are ways around it though, see this Microsoft forum post for details (but I suspect you already know this).

Nelviticus

 

[goombawaho]

Yeah, I knew about the registry changes required and I did it last night. Take a look at the performance figures - before and after AHCI mode was enabled. Before was Wednesday and After was Thursday. If this is to be believed, the performance gains are huge!!!
Not sure I believe this.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[Nelviticus]

Wow! I'll have to try that. If it's accurate then I wonder what's missing/not working properly in RAID mode. It is supposed to include everything from AHCI after all.

Nelviticus

 

[goombawaho]

From what I read, it has something to do with NCQ not being available in RAID mode. The difference in performance looks HUGE in that benchmark, but from the "seat of the pants" evaluation when I'm booting/using the laptop, it doesn't feel like that much. Kind of confusing.

Link

It also says on that page that "Intel recommends choosing RAID mode on their motherboards (which also enables AHCI) rather than the plain AHCI/SATA mode for maximum flexibility". Doesn't seem that's so smart if you have no RAID in your system and an SSD boot drive.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[Freestone]

Goom - you didn't happen to enable RAPID mode too, did you? These number increases look a lot like RAPID mode was turned on.
I have not run any Samsung EVO SSD in anything other than ACHI mode so I can't speak to that.

 

[goombawaho]

Ahh........ You know I did, but I'm not sure if that what pre- or post- change to AHCI, so not a controlled experiment after all. Findings are now suspect.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[HarryWild]

goombawaho,

Should of purchased the 850 Pro! It a little bit faster and has a better failure rate score.
I have the older Samsung 840 Pro on my 2007 era Thinkpad Z61p; and it blasting fast for internet surfing and boot up in about 6-7 seconds.
I have done nothing to the drive and it works like it new still. Did up date all the drivers including the Intel 4series Chipset PCI Express Root Port and all the controllers along with it including the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller.
It seems faster now if that is possible. Some of the drivers were dated back to 2006!

Enjoy!