Do you install 'Intel Rapid Storage Technology' driver?

rezerekted

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One day I decided to check out this utility called Slimdriver that scans your PC to make sure it has up to date drivers. It offered to download and install 'Intel Rapid Storage Technology' driver which I have never been offered by Windows update. Here is what is says about this driver,

"Intel® Rapid Storage Technology offers greater levels of performance, responsiveness, and expandability than ever before. Whether you are using one or multiple serial ATA (SATA) or PCIe drives, you can take advantage of enhanced performance and lower power consumption from the latest storage technologies. Additionally, you can rest easy knowing you have added protection against data loss in the event of a hard drive failure."

I've never used this driver in the past and it has a long startup delay so am wondering if it is good to have or not really necessary.
 
I never install that. It creates another System Tray icon and doesn't appear to do anything useful. Would love to see if it actually helped with non-RAID systems.
 
They say it helps with non-RAID systems too. The tray icon you can disable but it needs admin access and I run under limited user account. I disabled the tray icon in admin account but it loads in limited user anyway and won't disable so leave it alone and set to just show notifications. I have no issue with the driver I just don't like its slow load time on startup.
 
I ran it on my last laptop and it had better performance for my SSD than the default Windows 7 AHCI driver in the Samsung Magician benchmark. I don't think it makes a big difference in real usage, so I didn't install it on my new laptop using the same SSD.
 
I never install that. It creates another System Tray icon and doesn't appear to do anything useful. Would love to see if it actually helped with non-RAID systems.
Intel RST driver is for both Intel RAID and AHCI systems.

There are two versions of RST. One version, as you describe, installs the updated driver as well as a UI tool that helps manage and monitor Intel RAID (onboard RAID) as well as drive health for both RAID and non-RAID systems. The second option is called the "F6" version which installs the updated AHCI/RAID driver without the UI.

I always keep my F6 driver up to date, so yes I use RST but I do not use the GUI version because I don't run Intel raid or require the drive health motioning. Even if you run Intel RAID you can still get away with just the F6 driver, however you must manage the RAID from the CTRL-I menu at bootup.
 
There was a time that the RST driver could offer noticeably better performance (particularly CPU load) than the stock Microsoft driver, but the effect is far less pronounced these days. Some configs (like my ASUS board's m.2) outright won't use the RST.
 
There was a time that the RST driver could offer noticeably better performance (particularly CPU load) than the stock Microsoft driver, but the effect is far less pronounced these days. Some configs (like my ASUS board's m.2) outright won't use the RST.
Depending on the board it could be using an NVMe driver. My SSD does. I also have HDD's that do rely on the RST controller so I always keep that driver up to date. Surprising the amount of things they fix with each driver release.
 
Thanks for that! I've been slogging along with the Intel Chipset drivers and the -overall switch from 9.4.4.1006 for ages but the F6 drivers are just what the doctor ordered! Did Intel really discontinue RST in December though?
 
I don't use irst , just use Microsoft. I had nothing but problems trying to get irst drivers
to run on my pc..

No stuttering using ms either..
 
That would be news to me, there are v15 drivers dated within like June or so out there...
I tried the v15 drivers and still have issues with the excessive load/unload cycles on my hard drives. I currently use the RSTe 4.5.4 drivers on my z170 system and I don't get all of that excess wear and tear.
 
A bunch of the Intel chipsets also support SSD caching via RST, so there is always that.

I've never noticed a startup speed difference when having the RST tray icon loading. Maybe the RST driver you installed is crap. For my main rig, I NEVER let drivers download from Microsoft Update. The drivers available from them are well known to cause issues, especially NIC, printer, and video drivers.

Want a non-bootable system that worked perfectly before? Let your computer install drivers from MS.

Windows 10 seems to have gotten better in this regard.. at least on older laptops anyway. Not sure about newer stuff.
 
I just install the "F6" standalone driver and never had an issue. No need for the RST application. It does give generally better performance in benchmarks over the MS driver, if that means anything.
 
Awesome! Searching v15 turned up a new bookmark for me!
I think that Fernando person also posts stuff up to Station-Drivers - NEWS which I also have bookmarked, they have daily lists of updated drivers for pretty much anything. Site is French I believe and not all of it is in English, so I just trudge through it. :)

Also, I think the v15 drivers are only for the newest platforms, "Only Intel 100-Series/C230 Chipsets and Systems with an Intel Skylake CPU are natively supported by these drivers."
 
I think that Fernando person also posts stuff up to Station-Drivers - NEWS which I also have bookmarked, they have daily lists of updated drivers for pretty much anything. Site is French I believe and not all of it is in English, so I just trudge through it. :)

Also, I think the v15 drivers are only for the newest platforms, "Only Intel 100-Series/C230 Chipsets and Systems with an Intel Skylake CPU are natively supported by these drivers."
Oh hell yeah station drivers is awesome! Its where I learned what telechargment means haha. That makes sense about the SL chipsets! Its the little things that get me excited thank you!
 
A bunch of the Intel chipsets also support SSD caching via RST, so there is always that.

I've never noticed a startup speed difference when having the RST tray icon loading. Maybe the RST driver you installed is crap. For my main rig, I NEVER let drivers download from Microsoft Update. The drivers available from them are well known to cause issues, especially NIC, printer, and video drivers.

Want a non-bootable system that worked perfectly before? Let your computer install drivers from MS.

Windows 10 seems to have gotten better in this regard.. at least on older laptops anyway. Not sure about newer stuff.



Disadvantages of the IRST Software installation:

  • 1. extension of the boot time
    2. additional demand of resources (the IRST Service usually runs permanantly in the background)
    3. possible increase of system instability (some IRST Software versions have severe bugs)
 
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I think that Fernando person also posts stuff up to Station-Drivers - NEWS which I also have bookmarked,

Your connection is not secure

The owner of www.station-drivers.com has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.

www.station-drivers.com uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is not trusted because it is self-signed. The certificate is not valid for the name www.station-drivers.com. Error code: SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER

Also, according to Intel there is no
15.0.1.1040 RST driver and the latest is 14.8.0.1042.

Drivers & Software
 
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I've always used IRST and have always been pleased with my disk performance.
 
Also, according to Intel there is no
15.0.1.1040 RST driver and the latest is 14.8.0.1042.

Drivers & Software
Believe it or not, Intel's website often times doesn't have the most recent driver. Many times drivers are released specifically for certain vendors or for other reasons and don't get uploaded to Intel's public download site.

I know for a fact that 15.0.2.1044 WHQL RST drivers exist because I have used them.
 
Believe it or not, Intel's website often times doesn't have the most recent driver. Many times drivers are released specifically for certain vendors or for other reasons and don't get uploaded to Intel's public download site.
Is there another place I can dload the latest from besides that station-drivers site? I'm not making an exception in Firefox just for them.
 
Got them, thanks kindly.

Can I just install these over the older driver or do I have to uninstall the old driver then install this one?
You can install over the old driver. Makes it easier to "Rollback" drive if it messes up.

Other driver types you can uninstall and delete the driver package. I just get worried about storage because it might make your OS non-bootable so I am careful when deleting them.
 
Got them, thanks kindly.

Can I just install these over the older driver or do I have to uninstall the old driver then install this one?

I take that back. Just tried to install this driver and it is giving me an error saying, "Error Loading Language Resource".
 
Oh look, someone with the exact same issue.

Updating RST on W10 - error loading language resource

Yea, I tried to uninstall it and get the exact same error message. Funny thing is that I have uninstalled this driver before with no issues and the only thing I can think of that has changed since then on my PC is Windows Updates.
On 10 I went from RSTe 4.3 to RST 15, then to RSTe 4.5 without issues. The person in the thread said they were changing RAID modes without installing OS which is not officially supported.
 
I have used both and find they both have worked for me in the past. Right now I'm using the MS version, because the benchmarks are close enough that I don't "feel" the need to install the iRST. I think they both work fine for some platforms and I have tried to measure the boot up performance issue, and it does not exist on my systems. The UI loads slower, yes, but the driver and time to working desktop is essentially the same using either driver. The iRST gives slightly better benchmark results.
 
I had to switch back to a standard account to get the tray icon to stop loading. Would not work in limited user account even though I disabled it in admin account. It won't grant you access to the options unless you are an admin but then the option does not apply to limited user account. It was the tray icon that was causing a slower boot and not the driver. Good job, Intel. :/
 
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