Should I enable AHCI when installing Windows?

[abeacock]

I'm building a new system at the moment which has a SATA2 harddrive and I'm unclear as to whether I should install it in "AHCI mode" (via the BIOS).

I believe that this is something that can only be set at install time, and will provide native command queueing (NCQ) among other benefits.

The reason that I am asking this question is that I have also read a number of reports of issues with AHCI when transfering large files.

Does anyone have any hints on whether enabling this is going to benefit my system?

Thanks,

Andy B.

[shaithis]

Suck it and see

Supposedly some performace benefits but at the expense of some compatability.

I don't ever see many people with it, which is either a sign of ppl not knowing about it or not trusting it

[kalniel]

Never heard of it before to be honest

[Choo Choo]

I have the AHCI drivers installed on my system, and I honestly can't tell if there's a difference between having it on or off. I haven't had any issues with it on either, even when transferring large files like videos.

There might be some difference, but not enough for me to notice just yet.

[abeacock]

Cheers Choo Choo you have put my mind at ease a little.

Built my new system up last night and have started installing Windows. Changed the BIOS setting to enable AHCI and extracted the AHCI/RAID drivers from the motherboard website and F6'ed to use them.

Windows found the drive ok and formatted it correctly. Will proceed tonight and post my findings in this thread.

[abeacock]

Continued with the installation of WindowsXP which went smoothly.
Dropped in the motherboard driver CD and it installed the WinXP AHCI driver as well.

Not had any problems so far, if I come across any I will post them here.