GA-X58A-UD3R Questions re SATA settings for SSD and hard drive

[GrahamN]

Hi,

I should be getting my components to build a new PC on Tuesday and have been reading up on some of the basics. I have a Crucial SSD C300 128gb 6gb/s for the OS and main programs, paired with a WD black 1tb hard drive for everything else. 

I am not interested in RAID for my use but will regularly back up important stuff to two hard drives in a hot swap bay.

This is how I anticipated connecting it all up

Crucial SSD as my main boot drive connected to GSATA3_6 for the 6gb/s speed Bios set to AHCI
1tb hard drive connected to SATA2_0, hot swap drive connected to SATA2_1 and front case SATA connector connected to SATA2_2 bios set to AHCI
Optical drive connected to GSATA2_8 bios set to IDE because I read that it may not work with AHCI

Does this seem ok or have  got it all wrong,

Thanks in advance for any assistance,

Graham

[Dark Mantis]

Hi Graham and welcome to the forum. You seem to have grasped the concept ok, the only thiong I might take exception with is the SSD set to AHCI. Not because there is anything wrong with that but just because AHCI is only really usefull as far as the hot swap capabilities go. The perfomance increase is negligable and nobody is quite sure whether TRIM is functional or not even if it is enabled. I would say go ahead and have fun building your computer.

[GrahamN]

Hi Dark Mantis,

Thank you for the welcome and prompt reply.

Right, I had better do some more reading. Everything I have read so far suggests enabing AHCI for SSD's. I will look into the pros and cons of each method. Most of what I have read about this is where people have swapped HD's for SSD's and cloned the drive before swapping. Because I am doing a new build I ignored most of the problems associated with this.

I am more worried now about my choice of motherboard because of the problems I have read about here while searching for an answer to my questions prior to my first post. (Noises from motherboard and power supply among them)

Graham

[Dark Mantis]

Well let me hopefully put your mind at rest regarding these noises. There have been systems that have been as noisy as a "stuck pig" but to be fair they are few and far between and it would seem like it is caused by a combination of factors. Obviously the motherboard is one but the power supply seems to have a bearing on it too. I would say make sure that you get a good quality, powerfull, single 12v rail if possible. I think a lot of it just boils down to being unlucky.
 
The IDE v AHCI mode is a personal choice but needs to be made before the installation of the OS. I run mine in IDE mode because I found it to be more stable (256Gb Corsair Performance).

Anyway good luck and we are here if you need any more advice.

[GrahamN]

Hi again,

Done some more reading and some reports state that AHCI is needed for trim to work and some say either. Here are some quick cut and paste comments I found.

AHCI is advanced host controller interface, it allows new drive features like hotplug, NCQ, TRIM, etc

AFAIK yes. TRIM requires AHCI to work

Wow my scored bascially doubled by enabling AHCI from 196 to 401  The whole drive feels a lot quicker too
TRIM only requires the ATA stack to pass TRIM commands (including the drivers), be it IDE mode or AHCI

1. TRIM needs ahci
2. AHCI enables NCQ, which would increase your SSD performance even without TRIM
The 64thread 4k read test is the biggest improvement, and yes trim needs ahci

There are some AHCI optimizations over and above those possible in IDE, but in most cases I personally wouldn't bother with them. The one thing that might cause me to actually go through the steps to switch over is if I was using an SSD and I wanted to get native Windows 7 TRIM support, which I understand is only available in AHCI mode.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=505&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=12

The conclusion on this link is the best info I have found. (Am I allowed to post links. Please delete if not)

Thanks for putting my mind at ease about the board

Graham

[Dark Mantis]

Yes well Graham you pay your money and take your chances as they say. The thing is it is not the end of the world if you get it wrong and you can always change later. AHCI, IDE either way your SSD is going to be a lot faster than your mechanical hard drives.    It's got to be the way forward. But I think there is a long way to go yet for them.