Proper SSD Bios settings

I just put a new mSATA drive in my 17. Before ot was cache drive, now I'm using it as a boot. What are the Proper SSD Bios settings? Should I switch to ahci?

 

You shouldn't have to change anything! If you can't see the drive, then we can diagnose from there, but it should be plug and play.

Make sure the Intel RST driver has caching turned off, or just do a fresh Windows install on the SSD to get goin'!

 

Thanks. Well it works fine, but I heard AHCI mode improves the speed.

Advanced Host Controller Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

If you don't need the cache drive (as an cache) or any RAID facilities then use AHCI mode for simplicity, RAID driver will be fine if you did leave it though. You cant switch between them easilly without a clean install of windows again.

 

RAID includes AHCI. ACHI does not support RAID. AHCI is a huge improvement over IDE/ATA mode. But, there is no advantage to using AHCI mode. People are often mislead by not paying close attention to the operating modes that most discussions and technical articles are referring to. They are often silent on the subject of RAID, but using the link from your post, read what is under "Operating Modes" and you will see what I mean.

Flexibility is the main reason to set the BIOS to RAID. It allows you to make changes later on without having to do a clean OS install. As DDDenniZZZ points out, if you use RAID as the operating mode, you can add a cache drive or set up RAID later on without having to go through any rigmarole. There are a few third-party utilities that won't work with RAID mode, but you can easily live without them. Sometimes you have to temporarily switch to AHCI (from RAID) in the BIOS to update SSD firmware, but you simply switch it back to RAID mode after flashing.

 

Thanks for all of the help. I suppose I'll try and ask a semi related question here. Now that I have the mSATA in there, I ran some tests and it appears to be running at speeds, and even showing it has SATAII. My card is an Adata SX300 256g, which should support SATA III. I thought the new Alienware machies have SATA III support . What am I mossing?

 

The mSATA SSD (cache) in this Alienware 18 is running at SATA3 6.0GB/s and so is the main OS SSD. (The HDDs in this machine are only SATA2 3.0GB/s, but that is what these HDDs are rated for.) You may need to disable LPM for your SSD to run at 6.0GB/s. That's not an uncommon problem.

Spoiler

The attached registry tweaks will disable Intel LPM. I use this on all of my system with SSD and an Intel controller. I had issues with both of my Crucial M4 and both of my OCZ Agility 3 SSD running at 3.0GB/s with LPM enabled. All four SSDs running a rock solid 6.0GB/s with LPM disabled.

Link: [ LPM Fix]

 

Could you post a screenshot of a disk benchmark? Maybe we can nail down the issue.