Recommended AHCI/RAID and NVMe Drivers

Important Drivers General: Storage Drivers (AHCI/RAID, NVMe and USB)
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@Fernando , I’m working on an older Dell XPS 8910 desktop. The chipset is an Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Series … LPC Controller (Z170), and then the same version PCI Express chipset.

The motherboard has an NVMe slot, so I’ve installed a Western Digital Blue SN580 NVMe drive. The Storage controller is the Standard NVM Express Controller, which seems to be the one to use (over, say, the old Phison NVMe driver).

Newer Dell laptops don’t have an IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, but this tower does: the Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset SATA AHCI Controller.

Dell’s latest Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset SATA AHCI Controller is version 16.8.3.1004, and I know there’s a newer version.

If your going with NVMe, is the listed SATA AHCI Controller irrelevant? I could add a standard SATA drive, and I guess it would matter then, but that’s probably not going to happen on this box. Am I safe to assume that the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller has no affect on the NVMe drive, and that it’s all about the NVM Express Controller?

On my 300 series chipset laptop, it’s the same deal, and I always considered that there must be some interplay between the two controllers. But now that I’m thinking about it, that laptop can accommodate an older SATA drive, and the newer laptop I’m considering that doesn’t have the SATA AHCI Controller probably has no older SATA port.

If I were to add a standard SATA drive, would you consider not using Dell’s “recommended” 16 Series AHCI driver, and go with the v15.9.8.1050? I know that you’re not keen on using the v16, and that the v13.2.8.1002 outperformed all of the others on your ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Prof. Gaming board.

I don’t need to worry about RAID, since I’ll be dual booting Debian Linux.

Thanks

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@ChrisM
You forgot to mention the Windows OS you are running.

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Sorry. It’s a freshly installed Windows 10 Pro that’s completely up to date - with the newest Standard NVM Express Controller offered by Microsoft.

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@ChrisM
My benchmark AHCI driver comparison tests were done with older Windows Operating Systems. The generic Win10 in-box MS AHCI drivers of the latest Win10/11 Builds are much better than the ones of the previous Windows Operating Systems.
That is the reason why I use the MS AHCI driver with my Z170 chipset system while running Win11.

2 Likes
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Okay, interesting, and thanks for that. I expected that answer for the Win10 in-box MS NVMe driver, but not that AHCI driver. I think I talked myself through the AHCI and NVMe divide.

Not that it matters if I don’t install a secondary SATA drive after the NVMe drive, but when I Windows updated this old box, the AHCI driver was the generic Win10 in-box MS AHCI driver. But consecutive updates did eventually pull in the Intel v16 driver. If I install a SATA drive, I’ll go back to the MS AHCI driver. I have already disabled driver updates so I don’t risk pulling in the MS Catalog BIOS so as to not overwrite the CPU microcode updates. That computer’s last Dell bios update is 17 Aug 2020.

Many thanks!