Are Intel RST and Matrix Storage Manager used together?

I just downloaded the latest version of Intel's RST but I've already got Matrix Storage Manger on my computer. I don't have a RAID setup and don't plan to but I've read that there are other small benefits from having the IMSM program.

Would installing RST cause any conflicts with the matrix storage manager? Would RST even be necessary or beneficial?

 

Rapid storage technology replaced matrix storage manager near the end of 2009, use Rapid storage technology

 

I installed the Intel RST about a week ago and couldn't be more happier. Previously I had the Intel Turbo Memory/Intel Matrix Storage Manager v 1.10 installed and it took approximately 1 mins 10 secs to start and another annoying 30 secs "pause" before I could actually start any program. Now it took a mere 40 secs to boot to windows and surprisingly the 30 secs "pause" was gone.

 

I feel really stupid asking this, but how did you install Intel RST? I have the extracted files on a USB stick and pressing F6 at startup brings me to Windows boot menu, asking which OS I want to run (I've only got Vista) and the readme file instructs as if I'm doing this along side an OS installation.

Can I just use the .exe found here?

 

Yes. 10char

 

This. RST brought my G73's clean install boot time down to about 24 seconds from about 40.

 

So this seems to have backfired for me. Here are Crystaldiskmark runs with Matrix Storage Manager, without (after I uninstalled it) and then with RST.

RST is the slowest of them all, and by a rather noticeable difference for sequential read/write! Boot times are the same, ~1m 50s.

I guess my driver's older firmware doesn't work well with the new RST. Does anybody have any other ideas before I go back to Matrix Storage Manager?

EDIT: I also installed Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility before RST, the readme said this was required.

With Intel Matrix Storage Manger


With IMSM uninstalled


With Intel Rapid Storage Technology


oh well.

 

After reading this thread I decided to give IRST a go, but afterwards my audio kept glitching and stalling, so I reverted back. It also screwed with my Turbo Memory so I'm going to have to reinstall that. Meh.

 

Well I ran a defrag (Perfect disk) on my whole C drive including boot files. The last one I did before today was a month ago with the same program & algorithm. I also resized the pagefile (not like that matters) before the defrag and things are looking up.

Boot times are the same but the first Crystaldiskmark I ran had 99.67/87.37 Read/write! The second run (these are of 5 passes) was less encouraging at 91.36/85.09 and the third is 95.95/87.37.

I don't notice any problems with RST but I'll uninstall it, go back to Matrix Storage Manager, do another defrag and see what results it gives.

 

Here is what happened after I uninstalled RST!!

 

Well, happy to say I've got everything back in order. A fresh install of Vista with Matrix Storage Manager makes a large difference from RST. Here are 3 new Crystal Disk readings with all my programs and files back on the drive and immediately after a defrag with PerfectDisk.





While some of my best scores on this computer, my read/write speeds are within a few Mb/s of each other with either driver after the defrags. It seems for me that IMSM is just more stable on my system. The real winner here is defragmenting and short stroking!