Question : Problem: question on the intel matrix technology on my new asus board...

Just got a new Asus P5K Deluxe Motherboard.  This is my first experience with the P35 chipset.  Playing around in the bios I've found a setting to change the sata from ide to sata to AHCI.  From what I see it's for the Intel Matrix system.  Intel recommends using the raid option being that it adds the AHCI drivers as well.  Now what benefits do I gain from setting this from ide to raid or even the AHCI if I'm using only one 150raptor in my machine?  also what if I decide to add 2 500gig hard drives in a raid 0 at a later date?  just looking to see what the performance if any are there from using this technology.

thanks

Answer : Problem: question on the intel matrix technology on my new asus board...

You have three modes: 1) IDE Compatibility mode 2) AHCI mode and 3) RAID mode

IDE compatibility mode will expose the SATA controller as a legacy IDE controller.  The main advantage here is that under Windows XP, you won't need a special driver disk when installing Windows XP.

If you're planning on installing Vista, you won't need any special driver disk, as Vista has drivers that will work natively with your system in both RAID and AHCI modes.

If you're considering between AHCI and RAID mode, I would strongly recommend RAID mode.  The driver that will be loaded is the same, but if you install in RAID mode, you will be able to use RAID functionality in the future if you want it.  If you pick AHCI, you won't be able to use the RAID functionality without reinstalling your OS.

Also, a previous poster mentioned that you would not be able to create a RAID0 volume in the future.  That is not correct with Intel's RAID solution.  You can migrate a single disk to any RAID level your board supports (for this board, I believe it would be RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, and RAID10)

One last thing to note, Windows will not load if you change this setting after installation.  What you pick now will stay with you.