dumb hard drive questions.

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wadec22

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Jul 26, 2005
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okay so i have never really read up too much on hard drives but i want to make sure i'm getting the most out of my machine as possible. here are a couple dumb questions i've encountered:

- will using sata ports 1 or 2 be faster than say 3 or 4? i only ask b/c while hooking up my latest WD black 1tb drive, my large clumsy fingers found sata 3 port most acceptable to get at. i currently have my two sata drives in ports 3 and 4 and one ide hd hooked up. would i get better peformance moving it to sata 1?

- does having an IDE drive hooked up slow my other two drives down? i read that your sata controller should be set to ACHI in the bios for best peformance. currently mine is set at IDE. if i set it to ACHI, my drive BSOD on loading windows. i'm assuming that's because my IDE needs it set to IDE?

something i'm not seeing.

tia.
 
I can answer the first question..

Nope, it doesnt matter which SATA port you have them on. They will run at the same speed regardless..


I must say I am not sure on the second part..
 
1. SATA port does not matter. It sometimes matters for DOS level OS/programs, but for Windows, you're fine. If anything matters about booting, it's all about what disks are marked active, have MBR data, and which disk has the fastest spinup/race to the bus to be reported as "Disk 0"/"Disk 1" etc in Disk Manager in Windows.

2. Concerning AHCI, you must load the AHCI drivers at installation if you're running XP. Otherwise, you will bluescreen. AFAIK I don't know if you can make XP to AHCI mode after you've installed as IDE.

As for Vista/7, (Microsoft signed) AHCI drivers at loaded at install. If you're switching from IDE to AHCI with Vista/7 while they're already installed, I do not know will happen. I bet they will load but you will need another restart. If you install, and use the default loaded MS AHCI drivers, you can later install Intel AHCI drivers (from an .exe) and simply just restart. Rule of thumb: MS AHCI is stability, Intel AHCI is performance.

Edit: Since I see you're running SLI, I assume you're running an nvidia chipset unless it's an X58. Otherwise, you will need to load nVidia drivers after the install, rather than Intel which I specified earlier.
 
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