@olenbr : Welcome to the Win-RAID Forum! The Win10 in-box 32/64bit MS NVMe drivers cannot be used externally (e.g. while installing or running any other Windows OS), because a) their INF files do not contain the HardwareIDs of the supported NVMe Controllers (reason: they are generic and not specific drivers) and b) they neither need nor have a digital signature, that means no *.CAT file is associated (reason: they are part of the OS and natively trustworthy).
Although I seriously doubt, that a mod+signed generic MS in-box NVMe driver will work with any other Windows Operating System, I have composed such mod+signed MS NVMe drivers in July 2017. So you can find out yourself, whether my doubts were reasonable or not. Both driver variants (32/64bit) are attached.
When looking at Intel site it is not clear for me if I have to continue to use the Intel NVMe driver "Client" version v3.2.0.1002 or this new version v4.0.0.1005…
new: Intel NVMe Drivers Installer Set v4.0.0.1005 WHQL dated 01/16/2018 for Win7-10 Notes: Supported are the NVMe Controllers of the following Intel NVMe SSDs:
P3700/3600/P3500/P3520/750 Series (DeviceID of the related NVMe Controller: DEV_0953)
DC P3520 Series (DeviceID of the related NVMe Controller: DEV_0A53)
DC P4500 and DC P4600/4501/4601/4608/4510 Series (DeviceID of the related NVMe Controller: DEV_0A54)
DC P4600 (DeviceID of the related NVMe Controller: DEV_0A55)
Pro 7600p/760p/E 6100p Series DeviceID of the relted NVMe Controller: DEV_F1A6)
Optane 900p Series (DeviceID of the related NVMe Controller: DEV_2700)
Optane P4800x Series (DeviceID of the related NVMe Controller: DEV_2701)
new: 32/64bit Intel NVMe drivers v4.0.0.1005 mod+signed by me at 01/23/2018 Notes: Additionally supported are the NVMe Controllers of the following NVMe SSDs:
600P Series (DeviceID of the related NVMe Controller: DEV_F1A5)
Optane 8000p Series (DeviceIDs of the related NVMe Controllers: DEV_2522 and DEV_A2BA)
Thanks to Pacman for the info and the link to the original driverpacks.
Good luck with these new Intel NVMe drivers! Dieter (alias Fernando)
@100PIER : These Intel NVMe v4.0.0.1005 drivers are the direct successors of the v3.1/3.2 series NVMe drivers. Look >here<.
@Fernando , Thanks. I have done a comparative ANVIL bench on the same platform. Performance goes down significantly. (about 10%). I ignore if it is only the new Intel NVMe driver impact or the combination of the new driver and the recent (January Cumulative Update) Spectre/Meltdown "patched" W10 RS3 64 bit ? Intel NVMe v4.0.0.1005:
@100PIER : If you want to compare the performance of 2 different storage driver versions, you should do it in the same environment. The best option is to test both drivers straight one after the other.
@Fernando , Thanks. I have done a comparative ANVIL bench on the same platform. Performance goes down significantly. (about 10%). I ignore if it is only the new Intel NVMe driver impact or the combination of the new driver and the recent (January Cumulative Update) Spectre/Meltdown “patched” W10 RS3 64 bit ? Intel NVMe v4.0.0.1005: [[File:i750_SSD_ANVIL_v4.0.0.1005_23jan18.PNG|none|auto]]
I think the Intel v4.0 branch does offer potential similar performance as v3.2 branch, and the loss of performance should be coming from W10 himself because a comparative test using the W10 native NVMe driver November 2017 and native NVMe driver January 2018 get the 10% loss. I do observe the MS NVMe driver has been changed from last November 2107 and January 2018. The impact of W10 ‘patched’ (about 10% lost) is measured as this: Native W10 NVMe driver November 2017:
@100PIER : Here are my benchmark comparison results from today, done with Win10 v1709 (Build 16299.192) running on my 400 GB Intel 750 SSD:
A. Generic MS in-box NVMe driver:
B. Intel NVMe drivers (left: v3.1.0.1021, middle: v3.2.0.1002, right: v4.0.0.1005)
These are my conclusions: 1. The MS Win10 in-box NVMe driver gave my Intel 750 SSD the by far best WRITE scores, the worst READ scores and the best OVERALL performance. 2. In camparison to the previously released Intel NVMe drivers v3.1.0.1021 and v3.2.01002 the latest v4.0.0.1005 gave me slightly better READ, WRITE and OVERALL scores.
@x7007 : Since I don’t have any experience with an AMD chipset mainboard, I cannot answer questions regarding the quality and issues of AMD AHCI drivers.
Only users with an AMD chipset system like you can compare them both. Since AMD doesn’t update/optimize their AHCI and RAID drivers very often, I suspect, that the Win10 in-box generic AHCI driver will be the better choice.
@Fernando , About your Post 968#: Does your Z170 machine for the i750 NVMe device benchmarks tests was 100% not vulnerable to Spectre/Meltdown according to the 4 Tools currently available [SpecuCheck, InSpectre, MitigationStatus and SpectreMeltdownCheck (AShampoo)] ?
@100PIER : I only ran the InSpectre tool until now, because I decided to wait anyway until ASRock releases for my mainboard an updated BIOS, which really solves the Spectre issue without initiating new problems. This is what InSpectre found:
Great work modding the intel NVMe drivers. I was wondering if it might be worth adding the Device IDs of the small Optane "cache" drives? Even on platforms that do not support the caching feature many people are just using these as "normal" SSDs, I actually have one as a scratch drive in my Ryzen system! The write performance is not great but maybe using the intel driver could improve read speeds a bit? Just an idea…
What you certainly mean is the DeviceID of the related NVMe Controller. Please post it and I will add the HardwareIDs to the INF file. Regards Dieter (alias Fernando)
I just discovered you already support these drives in the modded driver, sorry I did not realise they are actually the 8000p series! The modded driver loads fine after installing the cert, it seems stable and read performance is a little higher in benchmarks but there is a lot of variation so it’s hard to say. Thanks anyway! 8 )
I have a WindowsToGo drive I use to troubleshoot PC for clients. The other day I came across a Dell XPS 13" 9360 w/ an NVMe SSD that wasn’t booting. In attempt to retrieve the data, I booted using my USB flash w/ Windows 10 ver. 1709 and to my surprise Windows 10 couldn’t detect the PCIe SSD via disk management.
I had to download the Intel RST driver from Dell here → http://dell.to/2FKUU4a – version 15.7.5.1025, A03 – and manually inject it before I was able to see the NVMe SSD. So my first question was, does Windows 10 have issues natively seeing PCIe NVME SSD in RAID or AHCI mode?
Also, I was thinking of downloading your latest, v11 & up AHCI/RAID + NVMe drivers and injecting them into my WindowsToGo USB to expand the driver store (& thus SSD compatibility) of my flash drive.
The OS Win10 has a generic in-box NVMe driver, which is able to detect and to manage all single (not RAIDed) NVMe SSDs, but it natively doesn’t support Intel NVMe RAID systems (2 or more NVMe SSDs combined to an Intel RAID array by using the Intel Rapid Storage Technology). By the way: NVMe and AHCI are completely different protocols. So no NVMe SSD can ever be run in AHCI mode (e.g. by being connected to an Intel SATA AHCI Controller).
No, only the latest Intel RST(e) drivers from 14.8 series up do support Intel RST RAID arrays, whose members are NVme SSDs. If I were you, I would integrate the Intel RST RAID driver v15.7.6.1027.
If I may ask, why do you recommend specifically integrating the Intel RST RAID driver v15.7.6.1027 versus the 15.8 or 15.9 series from your Intel RST/RSTe Drivers (newest: v16.0.1.1008/v5.3.0.1388 WHQL). Would it be a bad idea to integrate RST(e) v14.8.16.1063 , v15.9.1.1018 & v16.0.1.1008 as well? Am trying to make my WindowsToGo USB to be compatible with as many Intel, AMD, Lite-On, e.t.c NVMe SSDs as possible.
And if I integrate the v15.7.6.1027 driver, should I not bother with the Intel RST(e) NVMe RAID drivers v15.2.7.1042 WHQL from your thread here → Recommended AHCI/RAID and NVMe Drivers
Thanks in advance…
EDIT by Fernando: Fully quoted post replaced by directly addressing to its author (to save space)
