Single drive with RAID?

manish,

Your suggestion will only work if the user first installs the Intel RST driver package in Windows.

I am using Dell XPS 8930, configured as RAID in BIOS. Is it possible to switch from RAID to AHCI without reinstalling Win 10 - the Win OS is installed on the booting drive, a 250 GB SSD.

Hi,

Welcome to the forum.
Assuming the Win 10 installation is using Intel RST driver then yes you can switch to AHCI mode in Bios\UEFI without having to reinstall Windows.
Basically with only one drive present you actually are running in AHCI mode.

Cheers,

fdegrove is correct...

but I am curious why you think you need to switch it? ,if it so you can use Samsung's Magician , I don't think I'd bother.

Iif you have only one Drive then you are using the AHCI Driver anyway AFAIK. Also if the SSD is NOT in a Raid ARRAY then it is not in RAID , it is simply using the RAID Controller as a Single Drive as my boot SSD does.

IF you have 2,3,4 Drives in an Array , switching to AHCI WILL BREAK the Raid Array and you will lose all your Data if you simply switch the bios to AHCI. but there are ways to deal with that too .

here is one post on the Forums a search on Raid to AHCI wiill find others....

Attn. SSD owners - Enabling AHCI mode AFTER Windows 10 installation. Solved - Windows 10 Forums

KB

Hi,

if it so you can use Samsung's Magician , I don't think I'd bother.

You can fully use Samsung Magician with BIOS\UEFI set to RAID mode but it won't run on a RAID volume actually.
Besides that, SM chews out impressive figures when benchmarked but that's about it so, yeah I wouldn't bother with it either.


Cheers,

fdegrove said:

Hi,

You can fully use Samsung Magician with BIOS\UEFI set to RAID mode but it won't run on a RAID volume actually.
Besides that, SM chews out impressive figures when benchmarked but that's about it so, yeah I wouldn't bother with it either.

Cheers,

Exactly :) it does Firmware Updates though ....but DO NOT install the latest Firmware especially on the latest 960 Drives , without Checking the Samsung Forums 1st ..... they are having to RMA Drives currently broken by the latest 3B7Qxxxx Firmwares.... these /firmware are only available though Magician not from the Download site currently.

Memory & Storage - Samsung Community

Thank you for your replies - I appreciate them.

It is not the Windows OS that I have concern with. That said, I should be more explicit as to my hardware.

My SSD is a Toshiba, KXG50ZNV 256 GB NvMe drive, and in addition, there are 3 HDDs (Seagate and WD), all formattted as GPT. My intention is to keep SSD as Win10 OS, and use one of the HDDs for Linux installation(s).

The problem is that Linux cannot recognize the SSD - my understanding is that it is because of RAID. I can easily install Linux after disabling Secure Boot and enabling legacy boot. The result is that the Linux shows in BIOS as the first to load, with Win Boot Manager second, and no way to change the order.) I can go back and forth between the OSes, but to switch, I must restart and use F12 boot mode. This is inconvenient - I would much prefer to have a booting menu available on one screen, as it used to be with GRUB and MBR.

I tried the Samsung Magician, but with my SSD being Toshiba, the Magician's sorcery is not available to me. This is why I am thinking of switching from RAID to AHCI in the BIOS of my machine.

Thank you for your comments and thoughts.

genetics73 said:

My intention is to keep SSD as Win10 OS, and use one of the HDDs for Linux installation(s).

The problem is that Linux cannot recognize the SSD - my understanding is that it is because of RAID. I can easily install Linux after disabling Secure Boot.

I'd install rEFInd in the ESP on your SSD then. It will automatically find most Linux distros on any other connected drive and the odd exception is well documented.

You may have an issue with secure boot (but you can self sign - see here Secure Boot - ArchWiki) but you'll not have any issue with Windows boot loader assuming RAID.

You could test it by installing the rEFInd boot manager on USB and booting from that to see if you like the look of it.

lx07 said:

I'd install rEFInd in the ESP on your SSD then. It will automatically find most Linux distros on any other connected drive and the odd exception is well documented.

You may have an issue with secure boot (but you can self sign - see here Secure Boot - ArchWiki) but you'll not have any issue with Windows boot loader assuming RAID.

You could test it by installing the rEFInd boot manager on USB and booting from that to see if you like the look of it.

Thank you - I will try your suggestion.