Interestingly the BIOS lists the 2 SATA Controllers, the first of which identifies 6 ports and has a configurable RAID setting whilst the second, containing the remaining 4 ports does not.
That confirmed my understanding and hence why I raised the question with you. Please forgive my ignorance here…but so far as the second “non RAID” Controller is concerned I presume that in legacy mode (as in EFI) Intel RST can be operated in AHCI mode using the appropriate driver?
In order to operate in the manner I have suggested above and thus in turn for the OS to run the relevant “driver” would this not require an appropriate OROM to be loaded first in order to do so? If so, is that perhaps the purpose of the discrete versions of the installed OROMS rather than simply an oversight on Asus’ part as I understand these “duplicated” OROMS are also present on other 10 port Asus X99 boards?? NB. Again I apologise if, through my poor overall understanding of RST in AHCI, none of the above makes any sense!!
Finally, with this in mind, may I return to my original question…Is there any reason you are aware of why both controllers should not be updated to the later V14.8.2.2397 OROM, this being closer to the installed V14.8.12.1059 driver?
You can use any AHCI driver, which supports the DeviceID of your on-board Intel sSATA AHCI Controller. The Intel RAID ROM, which is within the BIOS, has nothing to do with the Intel sSATA AHCI Controller.
Modern Intel AHCI Controllers like yours do neither need nor use any Legacy or EFI OptionROM.
If I were you, I would update the only usable Intel RAID ROM v14 series of your BIOS to the latest one (v14.8.2.2397), but updating the v13 one is just wasted time.
Thanks for the clarification Fernando!! As both Controllers hold the same device ID (DEV_2822) either will therefore operate in AHCI mode WITHOUT ANY Intel RAID OROM being loaded…now I get it!!
I guess there is no obvious reason for this duplication…if I ever find an answer to why they have both been incorporated in the BIOS I will post here for the benefit of other members. The only thought I have is that perhaps in the early stages of development it was assumed by the OEM that the second controller would independently support RAID and thus it was coded in, whereas the final Intel chipset architecture only provided RAID support for the Controller serving the first six ports. Logically then, as you suggested:
…word for word from the motherboard manual:
So I will update ONLY the IRST RAID for SATA OROM located in 20FEEBDE-E739-420E-AE31-77E2876508C0 (serving Ports 1 - 6) to V14.8.2.2397 and leave the one located in E095AFFE-D4CD-4289-9B48-28F64E3D781D as is and we’re good to go.
Once I have successfully compiled and tested the updated BIOS I am happy to draft a step by step guide covering the steps I followed if you think it might help others dabbling with an Aptio5 update involving both the automated aspects of the UBU Tool but with a manual replacement of the three (of the four) legacy OROMS (IRST & both LAN’s) using the UEFI Tool.
Regards, PC Pilot
EDIT by Fernando: Unneeded blank lines removed (to save space)
The first part of your sentence is not correct. The DevceID of the Intel SATA Controller depends on the SATA mode (IDE/AHCI/RAID):
Your on-board Intel RST SATA Controller, which is managing the ports 1-6, has the DeviceID DEV_2822, but only as long as it is running in “RAID” mode (usually the BIOS allows to change the SATA mode to “IDE” or “AHCI” as well). If the SATA mode has been changed to “AHCI”, the DeviceID of this Intel RST SATA Controller will change to DEV_8D02.
The other on-board storage controller, which manages the SATA ports 7-10, is natively an Intel sSATA Controller, which belongs to the Intel RST “Enterprise Edition” (=RSTe) platform. Its DeviceID would be DEV_2827, if running in RAID mode, and DEV_8D62, if running (as yours) in AHCI mode.
Thank you for the follow up! The Device ID’s I was referring to were in fact those reported against the OROM Modules as extracted in the MMTool v5 which (as you clarified) obviously assigns the “RAID” ID…more on this shortly!
I can also confirm for sake of clarity that, as I noted back in post #452, with RAID enabled
Similarly, I can also confirm that in line with your reply, with Controller 1 set to AHCI mode Device Manager reports the two Storage Controllers as “Intel C600+/C220+ Chipset SATA AHCI Controller (DEV_8D02) & Intel C600+/C220+ Chipset sSATA AHCI Controller (DEV_8D62”) …apologies for any confusion caused by my poor wording!
Your reply also notes
and this reference of the Device ID being DEV_2827 leads rather neatly to some fresh information which is particularly relevant to my previous post (#483) and which I was about to post! …
As the architecture of my X99-Deluxe is strikingly similar to the Rampage V Extreme I thought it prudent to compare and can confirm that my BIOS 3402 also contains these same two means of enabling the IRST RAID… back in Post #460 I noted
however whilst I was aware of the option being present in the EZ Tuning Menu I wrongly assumed that it either operated the same switch or else was related to the EFI module.
In summary, it would appear that I was also mislead by another source which had identified that the discrete GUID’s in which each of the two OROMS reside each referred to the different controllers…@GoNz0 's analysis above provides a more credible explanation which also (as you confirmed previously) would otherwise have reported the device ID of the non RAID Controller to be DEV_2827. Clearly @GoNz0 's explanation both satisfies this requirement and the fact (as noted in the first paragraph of this post) that the OROMS I extracted BOTH are assigned the Device ID of DEV_2822 in MMTool V5.
In the light of this new information, would I be correct to presume that you would now advise updating both OROMS to the same V14.8.2.2397?
I am not yet totally convinced, that you will benefit from this additional BIOS modification, but on the other hand I am sure, that this update will not give you any disadvantage. So do it and report, if you get any surprising (positive or negative) results.
Having BOTH ‘RAID’ access options identified as using separate OROMS does seem a rather strange solution on Asus’ part to say the least!
…So far as the ‘benefit’ to me, well I guess satisfaction in having mastered the process and to be happy that all aspects of the ‘updateable modules’ (OROM, EFI, LAN, IRST and CPU Microcode) have successfully uprated…clearly this will be of greater benefit as time passes and the board becomes ‘forgotten’ by Asus as improvements become available solely to their then current range.
As requested, I will keep you posted once I have compiled and tested…
Hello Fernando, I just found this forum when I was looking for IRST drivers for my Z97 based system. I have read through all of the sticky posts and I must say I am impressed by your thorough testing and comparisons. Well done. However, I noticed that in your thread where you compared different driver versions of IRST, you declared version 13.2.4.1000 to be the best for Z97 systems but on the “which are the best intel ahci drivers” thread you’ve written that 13.2.8.1002 is the best one for Z97. I am just a tad bit confused, which one of these should I install? Reliability and stable operation is the most important thing for me. Thanks ahead of time!
You are right - that is a little bit irritating for the users with an Intel 8- or 9-Series Chipset system and caused by the fact, that I recently have found the very promising Intel RST(e) drivers v13.2.8.1002, but haven’t yet tested them myself with my Z97 system. I will do these tests as soon as I have the required time. By the way: You cannot do any mistake, no matter which one of these 2 slightly different Intel RST(e) drivers you take. Both of them will work fine. If you do not want to wait for my test results, I recommend to install the Intel RST(e) driver v13.2.8.1002. I am pretty sure, that this 1 year later released driver, which belongs to the same development branch 13.2 as the v13.2.4.1000 drivers, will give you even better results.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Dieter (alias Fernando)
P.S.: Since your post matches better the topic of this thread, I have moved it here and hope, that you will find my reply nevertheless.
Alright, thanks for the clarification. Also, I have downloaded the drivers and unzipped them. There are 6 files in the folder, but I don’t know how to install them… Could you give some instructions?
This is way how to manually install an Intel AHCI or RAID driver (provided, that the desired driver is WHQL certified by Microsoft and newer than the currently running driver):
Run the Device Manager.
Depending on the SATA mode (AHCI or RAID) of your on-board Intel SATA Controller, expand the section “IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers” (for AHCI mode) or “Storage Controllers” (RAID mode).
Right-click onto the listed Intel SATA AHCI resp. RAID Controller (maybe it is named “Standard SATA AHCI Controller”) and choose the options “Update driver” > “Browse my computer”.
Hit onto the “Browse…” button and navigate to the folder, where you have stored the unzipped desired driverpack.
Hit the “OK” button.
The rest will be done automaticly. After the next reboot your on-board Intel SATA Controller will use the desired Intel AHCI resp. RAID driver.
If you should get the message, that “the best driver has already been installed”, you have to force the driver installation by choosing the “Let me pick…” option, to hit the “Have Disk” button, to navigate to the desired driver folder, to double-click onto the desired INF file (iaAHCIC.inf for AHCI, “iaStorAC.inf” for RAID) and to choose the specific Intel SATA Controller model of your system.
Thanks man, just did that. I have a samsung 840 Pro 128 GB SSD and samsung magician shows significant performance gains in WRITE speeds as well as READ/WRITE IOPS compared to the standard msahci driver. I installed the version you tested with Z97, because I wanted to be double sure about reliable operation. I’ve bookmarked the page and will update to the next version once you have conducted the test whenever you find the time to do so. Thankyou
@Symbfrk : If you want to additionally boost the performance of your system, I recommend to look into the start post of >this< (for AHCI systems) or >this< (for RAID systems) thread.
I have just finished reading the post you linked, useful information indeed. However, I don’t know where to find the Intel MEI driver-only version that you installed for your Z97 system. Can you provide a link for that? Appreciate your support.
>Here< you can find the Intel MEI drivers. I recommend to choose the driverpack “INF for manually installation”. The Intel Management Engine device is listed within the “System Devices” section of the Device Manager.
I have to say 1st that this forum is absolutely awesome. Obviously this is my first post. I’ve tried to read up on what is the best setup for my 2 computers. Unfortunately i’ve got so many different answers it’s hard for an average guy like me to make the call. So here it goes on both PC’s
I’ve removed completely the 1tb HDD as well as the 32gb cache SSD. In there place i have installed the Samsung 950 pro 512gb in the M.2 slot where the cache was. After reinstalling windows everything seems to be running fine except that the Samsung Magician says there is no device detected, even though its seen in the device manager. My storage controllers are in Intel Chipset SATA RAID controller. After researching I’ve found that some recommend to switch to AHCI. I really like to know your professional thoughts based on my system. Should I reboot to AHCI (or whatever is the recommended process to switch) or leave in RAID? If it means anything, I have not added anything to the HDD slot inside the machine. I’ve seen were people convert it to the 2.5 SATA, or leave the HDD in. I choose to remove it and make a large external hard drive. I’ve read over a lot of your recommendations and there is so many I figured having you just tell me flat out would be extremely helpful for me. One more thing that has me at a loss for the best setup is that I’ve read the Samsung drivers and Magician is the best way to go and its looking like in order to make that happen I cant run RAID because it wont pick it up. Finally, I HAVE downloaded the latest drivers for the Samsung and the Magician and have tried going to device manager and installing them off my computer. It just reads that “the latest drivers are already installed” & I also have installed the latest Intel RST drivers which i think I’ve read that you shouldn’t have them set to auto update or something.
2.) Dell Latitude e7470 (i5 6300 @2.6GHz 128gb SATA QHD Touch Screen)
This computer is brand new and I have the exact same Samsung 950 pro 512gb to put in the single storage M.2 slot. I haven’t installed the 950 yet as I have just made a media creation on my USB stick. I was also searching and waiting on the now debunked rumor of possibly have the PCIe run 4 lanes instead of the 2 it was wired with. Although I seemed to get some solid Info that the M.2 NVMe on 2 lanes still out performs any 2.5 SATA. So with the e7470 would you recommend basically the same setup a the XPS 9550?
I just want to apologize in advance if I missed anything that is plain as day on my same situation. I just want to get the best results out of my devices and there hardware, and that seems like something your on the same page with…not to mention excel at. Please if you have any other “added” tips other than the main question of RAID vs AHCI i’d love to hear them for my 2 machines. If there is anything else you need to know to give me the best advice i’d be glad to get it for you.
@sealovererik : Hello Erik, welcome at Win-RAID Forum! The choice of the “best” Intel AHCI/RAID drivers does not depend on the system’s manufacturer and model name, but on the Intel chipset of the mainboard, which is inside the PC. If you know resp. found out the exact chipset of your 2 Dell systems, you can find the Intel RST/RST(e) driver version, which I recommend to install, at the bottom of the start page. The answer to the question, whether it is better to set the SATA mode of the on-board Intel SATA Controller to AHCI or RAID mode, depends on what the user prefers: best possible performance or best possible stability and data protection. By the way: I do not recommend to install Samsung’s Magician. In my eyes this tool is not very useful, but a risk for the system’s stability.
@smaltese : Welcome at Win-RAID Forum! I have moved your post into this already existing thread with the same topic. You can find the answer to your question at the bottom of the start post.
I just ordered an Asus z270G and have a question to ask. Have all AHCI drivers been “changed” to RST? So we’re sort of forced to install those now? I just want to install the best performing drive for my chipset through Device Manager like I’ve always done. I can still do that right?
I don’t understand the question. Nothing important has been changed since a couple of years regarding the usable AHCI drivers while running a modern Windows Operating System.
You can still choose whether to use the MS in-box AHCI driver named MSAHCI.SYS resp. STORAHCI.SYS or a specific original/modded Intel RST/RST(e) AHCI driver, which supports your Z270 chipset system.
Yes, if you install a driver, which supports the HardwareIDs of your on-board Intel Z200-Series Chipset SATA AHCI Controller.
