SATA Drivers? To Use or Not To Use For a Non-RAID Setup?

Question

SATA drivers for AHCI RAID in the BIOS will be the right setup for a newer SATA II drive like the raptors. However if you just want to add a second drive which is the right choice RAID ATA or Combination SATA PATA. Will the SATA drives still deliver the 150 speed rather than a 100 or 133 transfer rate? And the SATA configuration in combination uses SATA 0 for drive C and SATA 2 for drive d as the SATA 1 and SATA 3 ....I would imagine are for the RAID array configuration of two drives.

ejn63 · Answer

The very best SATA drive (the Raptor) will deliver just under half of what SATA150 can support at best. If you run RAID0, theoretically that would double; practically, the difference is about 10%, which makes it not worth the risk of data loss.

proficient · Answer

What I am looking for is running dual SATA Drives as independent disks. The F6 install of the Intel driver is inconclusive as to which choice should be selected:

Intel 82801 GR SATA Raid Controller
Intel 82801 GR SATA AHCI Controller

Then there are GH, FR versions and others to choose from. It is not clear if this is a language choice. The plan is to use the appropriate driver so the data transfer rate is 150. Currently the machine seems to be converting the SATA Seagate to 100MBs Ultra ATA and does not recognize the drive properly on a re-install.

It is not clear even in the DELL Intel Matrix Storage Driver dowload section for the 9100 as they list four different choices! And the Intel disk has six choices! I would imagine an AHCI choice should default to 150 if later you would like to use a 300 newer drive as they become available and less expensive. But there are still more than one of those too!

nau1977 · Answer

If you are not doing RAID, use AHCI. There are sometimes at work when someone does not install the drivers at all, and format takes up to 3 hours. Using the driver, it formats it under an hour, and it works afterwards. The GR is part of the 82801, 82801GR. Some version system. I thought it was a language choice also.

proficient · Answer

Thanks. We spent the better part of the day trying to use Norton Ghost after an F6 Intel matrix Storage driver install. Does not work. The drive once it is forced into an IDE mode it stays that way. So we had to recover the machine manually. First a clean install F6 with AHCI drivers for SATA controller than slowly rebuilding the machine up and insluding all of the drivers, cards, software etc. It took hours. Now there is a new Ghost backup. And it runs much faster. And hopefully it will not be corrupted again. This machine should be in the AHCI driver mode if not doing RAID and not SATA/PATA Compbination as the controller forces the drive from SATA to IDE and it will run slower and corrupt it eventually. Segate also recommends NOT to use the combination setting. It takes longer and unfortunately the documentation is not the clearest so it will take patience. Thanks for the help!

ricolit · Answer

acoording to dell you do NOT use the F6 driver when installing windows Xp with service pack2 embedded! F6 drivers are for xp sp1 only (i know you find it no where mentioned, a tech manager of dell told me after i ran into trouble). if you do and you have truoble you have to use ctr+i and remove the raid configuration setup (if its there) and reset drives to NON RAID. also adjust the bios settings (F2) to sata or non raid.

Storage, Drives & Media

SATA Drivers? To Use or Not To Use For a Non-RAID Setup?

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