Which Gigabyte drivers for SSD?

[JohnnyGui]

Hello all,

Sorry but I'm quite new to this. I have bought a new PC with a Neo Forza 256GB SATA 600 SSD and Windows 10 Pro x64. Scanning through the Gigabyte storage drivers webpage for my motherboard, I found the following drivers:

- Intel SATA Preinstall driver (For AHCI /RAID Mode)
- Intel Rapid Storage driver

I got 4 questions.
1. I understand that the Intel SATA Preinstall driver (For AHCI / RAID Mode) should be installed during the Windows installation if Windows can't recognize any storage device. However, is there

any benefit to install it if Windows does recognize the storage device?

2. Is the Intel Rapid Storage driver necessary? I read on Intel's info page that just 1 storage device could still benefit from it, even if I don't have RAID (which I'm not planning to).

3. Is the Intel Rapid Storage driver needed even if I have already installed the SATA Preinstall driver before during the Windows installation?

4. My Gigabyte mobo's support page only offers the .exe file to install RST but I want to install the "pure" drivers only. When opening the .exe file with 7zip I found quite a lot of files and 2 .cab files; media1.cab and drivers.cab. Should I extract the drivers.cab file and ignore the media1.cab file?

I would appreciate it so much if someone could clarify these for me.

[rcarlos243]

Re: Which Gigabyte drivers for SSD?

1. I understand that the Intel SATA Preinstall driver (For AHCI / RAID Mode) should be installed during the Windows installation if Windows can't recognize any storage device. However, is there any benefit to install it if Windows does recognize the storage device?

A: Installing the AHCI driver will let the processor go into deeper power state and gives better I/O performance



2. Is the Intel Rapid Storage driver necessary? I read on Intel's info page that just 1 storage device could still benefit from it, even if I don't have RAID (which I'm not planning to).

A: You don't need the whole suite. You can download just the driver itself. I recommend these

Forum - Recommended AHCI/RAID and NVMe Drivers


3. Is the Intel Rapid Storage driver needed even if I have already installed the SATA Preinstall driver before during the Windows installation?

A: Your device will still function even without the Intel RST, but you won't get the full benefits (better I/O performance and deeper C-states)

4. My Gigabyte mobo's support page only offers the .exe file to install RST but I want to install the "pure" drivers only. When opening the .exe file with 7zip I found quite a lot of files and 2 .cab files; media1.cab and drivers.cab. Should I extract the drivers.cab file and ignore the media1.cab file?

A: look at answer above

I would appreciate it so much if someone could clarify these for me.