Inspiron 5580 NVME driver installation

You need to go into your BIOS and switch the SATA Operation setting from RAID to AHCI so that the Intel Rapid Storage RAID controller is no longer active.  However, this setting is meant to be changed before installing an OS, because after you change that setting, an OS that was installed while it was in the previous state will no longer boot.  There are apparently ways you can work around this by making some changes to the OS prior to changing that setting, such as the steps outlined in this article, but I've never tried that myself.  Note that the name of the Intel controller won't be "Intel SATA RAID Controller" on your system; that's an old name, and yours will probably be something like "Intel RST Premium SATA/NVMe Controller".  Worst case if your system doesn't boot after you switch to AHCI mode, just switch it back to RAID mode and you should be fine.  That said, it's never a bad idea to create a backup before mucking around like this!  A full system image backup would be best.

I went through the article you mentioned, but there seem issues for some people as per the comments.

So I would prefer not to do that, also my tech skills are not very good.

So my question, is it OK to NOT have the Samsung nvme driver and continue with the current Intel driver ?

The only problem I see it will be 

i.) Not utilising the full potential of nvme SSD 

ii) Not being able to use Samsung Magician - It does not work in RAID mode.

I am fine with both as long as there are no system issues due to not using the nvme driver.

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@usrAdmin wrote:

I went through the article you mentioned, but there seem issues for some people as per the comments.

So I would prefer not to do that, also my tech skills are not very good.

So my question, is it OK to NOT have the Samsung nvme driver and continue with the current Intel driver ?

The only problem I see it will be 

i.) Not utilising the full potential of nvme SSD 

ii) Not being able to use Samsung Magician - It does not work in RAID mode.

I am fine with both as long as there are no system issues due to not using the nvme driver.

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Yes, you can absolutely keep using the Intel RST driver instead.  In terms of potential of the SSD, perform a benchmark of your SSD using something like CrystalDiskMark.  On some systems, NVMe SSD performance is capped at around 1.8 GB/s even if the SSD itself can go faster, either because the system only has a PCIe x2 interface rather than a PCIe x4 interface for the NVMe SSD, or it has an x4 interface that is being run in power saving mode rather than max performance mode, which gives roughly equivalent performance to an x2 interface.  I can't remember how the Inspiron 5580 works, but if you see around 1.8 GB/s, then the driver isn't going to make a difference.  If that system is able to use the SSD to its max performance, then it's possible that the Samsung NVMe driver will increase its performance, but whether you'd notice the difference in real world usage is another question.  I personally don't use the Samsung NVMe driver for a different reason.  Not too long ago, an issue was discovered that if you had the Samsung NVMe driver active and tried to simply create a new VHD/VHDX file (common for using VMs and a few other cases), the system would blue screen.  I work in IT, and if I had encountered that behavior, I would have spent a long time and pulled out a lot of hair before thinking that perhaps my SSD's NVMe driver would be causing a blue screen when I tried to create a file -- especially if I had installed that driver long before I tried to create my first VHD/VHDX file.  I long ago gave up on trying to pursue every last ounce of performance on systems with a bunch of tweaks, optimized drivers/applications, etc.  Nowadays I value the relative stability of keeping it simple, even if my system isn't as fast as it could possibly be.  If it were my system, I would set it to AHCI and then just keep the default Microsoft NVMe driver built into Windows.  But if you're trying to avoid switching to AHCI, then I would still trust Intel's RST driver more than Samsung's NVMe driver.

As for Samsung Magician, it's true that you need the Samsung NVMe driver for that, so take a look at what it offers and decide whether you care about any of those features.  If you do, then you'll have to bite the bullet and somehow get yourself over to AHCI mode so you can install that driver.  If you don't, then stick with RAID mode and the current Intel RST driver.

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@usrAdmin wrote:

I went through the article you mentioned, but there seem issues for some people as per the comments.

So I would prefer not to do that, also my tech skills are not very good.

You, of course can do whatever you want.  The procedure to change the controller is very easy and you may even be able to use it to get your current install to work with the Intel controller.  

Just in case,

Open msconfig.exe and set the system to boot into SAFE boot on the boot tab and apply.  

Then reboot your system and go into the Bios settings.  Change the SATA controller to AHCI and then let the system reboot into SAFE Mode.   Once there, open msconfig.exe again and set it back to normal startup on the General tab and apply.

After another reboot, it should then be using the NVMe controller and the Samsung utility will work.

All this process does is allow for a controller change while in SAFE Mode so it does not trigger the Repair options.  But if you feel you are going to reinstall anyway, what can it hurt to try.

With that said, the newer Intel controller does seem to give good performance on the NVMe drives.

Below is the CrystalDiskMark screenshot. The performance seems to be good, considering that I wont be using this laptop for gaming or other resource heavy tasks. So I plan to just run it as it is without installing the NVME driver.

I use the Samsung Magician in another laptop and it seems to have all the drive and optimisation information in one place and the ability to change it easily. Other than that, its utility is beyond me.

So I will not do any changes to the driver or the RAID to AHCI mode.  

Thanks for your help.