Does AHCI Affect Storage Drives?

[PhishingJimi]

I have a HDD that I had previously connected to my old operating system that was installed with the SATA set in IDE mode. I'm planning on installing my new operating system on a SSD with the SATA set in AHCI mode.

Will I have any trouble accessing my storage HDD with the OS running on a SSD in AHCI mode?

 

[Aesma]

AHCI is for all drives, but it doesn't "affect" the drives, it gives better performance when enabled, that's all. The problem with switching from IDE to AHCI is that the drivers needed aren't the same, so the OS has to have the necessary ones (once it does you can switch freely).

As an aside, don't connect your other drives until after the OS is installed on the SSD.

 

[PhishingJimi]

Thanks for the info.

 

[PGHammer]

AHCI is for all drives, but it doesn't "affect" the drives, it gives better performance when enabled, that's all. The problem with switching from IDE to AHCI is that the drivers needed aren't the same, so the OS has to have the necessary ones (once it does you can switch freely).

As an aside, don't connect your other drives until after the OS is installed on the SSD.

The biggest issue with AHCI is controller support for it by the operating system. Intel is normally good about AHCI controller support in Windows in their southbridges (the native Intel SATA controller driver included with the original Windows XP supports AHCI); however, there is a quirk - the consumer-stable/corporate-stable G31 Bear Lake and G41 Eagle Lake do not support AHCI (the two chipsets use the same ICH7 southbridge); they are, in fact, unique in this quirk. AHCI on Intel chipsets goes back to the ICH5 (the original one that didn't support RAID) southbridge; it was kept in the ICH5R (the first revision that added RAID support; a second revision added SATA RAID support as well); hence, you could get bit if you migrate from Intel 8xx to G3x/4x.

 

[Old Hippie]

the native Intel SATA controller driver included with the original Windows XP supports AHCI);

Common mistake.

AHCI was never included with XP including SP3.

Windows XP does not provide support out of the box

 

[Aesma]

The biggest issue with AHCI is controller support for it by the operating system. Intel is normally good about AHCI controller support in Windows in their southbridges (the native Intel SATA controller driver included with the original Windows XP supports AHCI); however, there is a quirk - the consumer-stable/corporate-stable G31 Bear Lake and G41 Eagle Lake do not support AHCI (the two chipsets use the same ICH7 southbridge); they are, in fact, unique in this quirk. AHCI on Intel chipsets goes back to the ICH5 (the original one that didn't support RAID) southbridge; it was kept in the ICH5R (the first revision that added RAID support; a second revision added SATA RAID support as well); hence, you could get bit if you migrate from Intel 8xx to G3x/4x.

I'm not sure why you're unearthing this thread to be off topic. He talks about moving a secondary drive from a computer to another. AHCI is not a concern in that case.

 

[PGHammer]

I'm not sure why you're unearthing this thread to be off topic. He talks about moving a secondary drive from a computer to another. AHCI is not a concern in that case.

It can be if the target (not source) computer doesn't support AHCI and the drive is bootable. I didn't bring it up to be off-topic, as the concern is a valid one. Secondary (or later) drives can most certainly be bootable - I've had three bootable drives (not partitions) in the same desktop (usually, I have two such drives; however, I have added a third when dealing with a sick computer).

 

[PGHammer]

Common mistake.

AHCI was never included with XP including SP3.

Included - no; as support was not the default. However, AHCI support could be added, depending on controller support. Ohherwise, why is there an AHCI option in the ICH5R controller driver for Windwos XP (SP2 and later) and *all* versions of Windows Server 2003?