Which hard drive setting for bios should I choose?

Question

I was reading about hard drive controllers because of this tweek I'm trying to do:http://www.tweakwin7.com/articles/44119/improve-sata-hard-disk-performance-convert-from-ide-to-ahci/

Anyway, I dont have IDE listed. I have ATA and Raid listed in my bios. I don't understand why I have Raid listed though because I only have 1 hard drive in the machine. Can someone help me understand why my bios only list those two options?

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Studio XPS 8100
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 7.96 GB
Available Physical Memory 6.30 GB
Total Virtual Memory 15.9 GB
Available Virtual Memory 14.0 GB
Page File Space 7.96 GB
1TB Harddrive

Answer 1

>First of all, this tweak (yes, its a nice tweak!) is only valid if you have an older IDE type BIOS. So the fact is, your BIOS is too modern and does not list IDE any longer (I am thinking your motherboard doesn't even have an IDE port on it). You also have to have an Intel AHCI available in the motherboard which is seen as a kind of "device," by the BIOS. If all you have are SATA (ATA) ports, which I suspect is the case, that is why you do not have any listing for IDE drives. No IDE ports, no IDE detected. It's that simple. The only thing I can think of why you would want to do this is if you have an older IDE drive and you have purchased an IDE to SATA converter (they can be had for $15 - $20). The converter on one side of the box has an IDE ribbon to connect to the old IDE drive. Then, there is a small circuit board which converts IDE signals to SATA signals. On the other side of the box is a SATA data connector. This allows you to use an IDE drive as a SATA drive and allows the BIOS to recognize the old IDE drive as a SATA device. However, an IDE drive will never improve in speed through a converter box because it is hard wired to an IDE speed. An AHCI will see the device as a SATA device, but will not see a minimum SATA speed, it will see the maximum IDE speed of the drive.



So what I am saying is that you can convert an older IDE to SATA device through a converter box, but you cannot make the old IDE drive improve in performance as if it were a real SATA drive. On a computer with a motherboard which has NO IDE ports, there will be no IDE detection capability in the BIOS and so I think your motherboard has no IDE ports and therefore, the BIOS has no detection capability for IDE. The only way to get such a computer to run an IDE device is to convert the IDE signals to SATA data signals through the converter. In this case, the AHCI is native to such a motherboard and there are no IDE controllers available. Thus, you must already be using AHCI controllers and you will see NO improvement in speed. The tweak you mentioned is only good for older computers with IDE ports and IDE in the BIOS, and then, you can have an AHCI and perhaps take advantage of the tweak. I hope I am making sense to you.



PS - I am going back to this reference site to see what other tweaks they might have I can use! Thank you.

Answer 2

Raid is a option from Dell that could be used in your computer given the correct hardware is install. This would be installed by you. Sata should be used under the AHCI feature. My XPS 9000 is set up this way as delivered. My Asus Sabertooth X58 i7 board also." AHCI ( Advanced Host Controller Interface) allows the onboard storage to enable advanced Serial ATA features that increases storage performance on random workloads by allowing the drive to internally optimize the order of commands " The system reads and writes faster which enhances speed. Hope it helps.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

Enable the IDE, it is use by ATA and SATA hard disk. Disable the Raid or else your computer will search for a RAID device.