Last Question (maybe) Before the Big Day

[mb]

My system is in the case and ready save one last detail. ASUS P6T
mobo/i7 930, 6 gb triple channel Corsair RAM, Radeon HD 5770 (will
upgrade later), and a brand new WD Caviar Black 1tb HD with 64 mb cache
as my boot drive. I'm doing final backups from my older WD Caviar Black
1tb HD with 32 mb cache and plan to install it as a second drive for
data storage. Assuming it passes the first POST, I gather I'll have a
decision to make in the BIOS. Both drives will plugged into the first
two ICH10R connectors. I've read to ignore the JMicron connectors.

My question is, should I leave the HDs in the default IDE setting or use
ACHI? Everything I read on the web might as well be saying, "Duck
season! Rabbit season!" Some say IDE is easier to manage with little
gain in speed, others say IDE is a waste of a modern hard drive. I
don't have the technical expertise to judge either way. Thanks.

mb

 

[Tom Lake]

My system is in the case and ready save one last detail. ASUS P6T
mobo/i7 930, 6 gb triple channel Corsair RAM, Radeon HD 5770 (will
upgrade later), and a brand new WD Caviar Black 1tb HD with 64 mb cache
as my boot drive. I'm doing final backups from my older WD Caviar Black
1tb HD with 32 mb cache and plan to install it as a second drive for
data storage. Assuming it passes the first POST, I gather I'll have a
decision to make in the BIOS. Both drives will plugged into the first
two ICH10R connectors. I've read to ignore the JMicron connectors.

My question is, should I leave the HDs in the default IDE setting or use
ACHI? Everything I read on the web might as well be saying, "Duck
season! Rabbit season!" Some say IDE is easier to manage with little
gain in speed, others say IDE is a waste of a modern hard drive. I
don't have the technical expertise to judge either way. Thanks.

Other than in some benchmarks, I don't see any practical difference
between the two. I use AHCI (The correct acronym) simply because
my OS X partition requires it.

Tom Lake

 

[KCB]

My system is in the case and ready save one last detail. ASUS P6T
mobo/i7 930, 6 gb triple channel Corsair RAM, Radeon HD 5770 (will
upgrade later), and a brand new WD Caviar Black 1tb HD with 64 mb cache
as my boot drive. I'm doing final backups from my older WD Caviar Black
1tb HD with 32 mb cache and plan to install it as a second drive for
data storage. Assuming it passes the first POST, I gather I'll have a
decision to make in the BIOS. Both drives will plugged into the first
two ICH10R connectors. I've read to ignore the JMicron connectors.

My question is, should I leave the HDs in the default IDE setting or use
ACHI? Everything I read on the web might as well be saying, "Duck
season! Rabbit season!" Some say IDE is easier to manage with little
gain in speed, others say IDE is a waste of a modern hard drive. I
don't have the technical expertise to judge either way. Thanks.

mb

I went AHCI simply because it was the most current spec when I built my
system. I had clean install with similar system and never looked back.

 

[a]

My system is in the case and ready save one last detail. ASUS P6T
mobo/i7 930, 6 gb triple channel Corsair RAM, Radeon HD 5770 (will
upgrade later), and a brand new WD Caviar Black 1tb HD with 64 mb cache
as my boot drive. I'm doing final backups from my older WD Caviar Black
1tb HD with 32 mb cache and plan to install it as a second drive for
data storage. Assuming it passes the first POST, I gather I'll have a
decision to make in the BIOS. Both drives will plugged into the first
two ICH10R connectors. I've read to ignore the JMicron connectors.

My question is, should I leave the HDs in the default IDE setting or use
ACHI? Everything I read on the web might as well be saying, "Duck
season! Rabbit season!" Some say IDE is easier to manage with little
gain in speed, others say IDE is a waste of a modern hard drive. I
don't have the technical expertise to judge either way. Thanks.

mb

There was an article on this on benchmarkreviews.com but the original
article which included traditional hard disks vs. ssd disks has been
removed and the current article only features SSDs. If I remember the
original article correctly, for traditional hard disks, ide performs
slightly better than ACHI. (I have the same WD 1tb as your older drive
with the 32mb cache and I have left this as ide.) The newer article
indicates that ACHI is best for newer SSD drives.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=505&Itemid=38