Do I need Intel Rapid Technology running in the background?

tfwul · 07 May 2021

My system is as follows:
OS: Windows 10 Pro x64 (19042.662)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz
BIOS: AMI v3505, 13-01-2017 (UEFI)
Motherboard: ASUS X99-DELUXE/3.1
Boot Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Boot SSD: Samsung 850 Pro (512GB, SATA, AHCI Mode, Disk Cache Enabled)
Locale: UK
RAM: 32,0 GB
Page File Space: 4,75 GB
Page File: C:\pagefile.sys

there is always this Intel Rapid Technology service running and displayed in the taskbar.
This is for years already. Installed it myself, believing it would improve the overall performance.

But, frankly speaking, I don't know whether it serves any purpose in my case: a single, non-RAID PC with a number of HDD's.

It doesn't bother, but if it is of no use, then I might as well uninstall it.

Appreciate views.

Thanks.!

Pejole2165 · 07 May 2021

You do not need it. But, and here is where it can get messy, the Intel RST software package has had the Optane caching and pinning software rolled into it and it can also be used to support Intel SSDs.
Whether you can or should uninstall it depends on your PCs configuration. Check that you do not have an Optane module installed and enabled, if you do then use it's utility to disable it. You have already said you don't run RAID, but check your BIOS is set to use AHCI for disk controllers, not something like "Intel Premium RST" or similar.
If not using AHCI you can switch to it but it is an involved process with a small risk of data loss.
You can use Autoruns from Sysinternals to check if the Intel RST drivers are loading and disable them (if your PC is set to AHCI) before uninstalling the drivers.
So to sum up, check your BIOS for AHCI already set, if yes use Autoruns to disable RST drivers, then re boot and uninstall the drivers.
If BIOS is set to another type of disk controller do not proceed until asking here, unless you can find the procedure yourself and are confident in doing it.
And as recommended constantly on these forums, before making any significant changes, use Macrium Free or a similar app to create a system image so you can go back if it all goes screwy.

tfwul · 08 May 2021

Many thanks!

Apart from conventional HDD's I have 2 Samsung 850 Pro SSDs (no Optane)
one of them, the 512GB (see above), is used for "C:".
Motherboard has 2 controllers both are set to AHCI.

Installed version of iaStorA.sys is 14.5.0.1081 (July 2015).

Will uninstall it some time today.

Thanks again.

eLPuSHeR · 10 May 2021

Good day.

First of all backup all your data with Macrium Reflect or similar just in case something goes wrong.
I would then open Hardware Manager and manually select MS standard AHCI driver for your SATA adapters. Reboot and see if everything is fine. Remove Intel IRST leftovers if any (you can remove the driver with DriverStore Explorer.