New X25-V advice please

[idata]

I just purchased a X25-V 40B and done a clean instal of Win7 x64 on it.

So far everything is going well, and Im very happy with it. I have a couple questions if someone could help please.

In the Device Manager Detals Tab/Hardware Ids -- Its showing 2VC102HB Im assuming this is the FW revision.

My first question is:

Is there any real need or benefit to flashing the FW?

Im a bit weary of it as I had a Vertex 30GB, that after flashing the FW to 1.5 it started having issues a week & 1/2 later and finally died needing a RMA.

(seems many other did as well)

At this point I moved to Intel and so far so good.

My second question:

What AHCI Driver should I be using? ATM, its using (I think the MS one) "Standard AHCI 1.1 SATA Controller"

Would Matrix Storage manger be of any benefit?

About my setup (If its important)

Im running Win7 x64 on a DFI DK MOBO with x48 chipset (ICH9R SB)

Q9650 with 4X2Gb of Gskill RAM (PC8500) 400FSB.

The x25-V is running Win7 as a solo drive, and I have 2 other WD platter drives (640Blue and 1TB Black) running as solo disks in partitions for DATA

When the Vertex 30GB returns from RMA, I was going to use it for Documents and a game or 2.

[idata]

Correct, that's the firmware revision. My X25-V came with 02HB too, though I updated it (without issue) before I commenced benchmarking and diagnostic test, before I installed windows.

as to the benefit in upgrading, well, ultimately it's up to you. there's no reason to draw parallels from your previous experience. personally I think it makes sense to have the latest firmware, especially if it's been out for a while and hence has passed a somewhat limited 'time' test.

To your second part, the standard Microsoft AHCI driver is quite good. A final public release of the Rapid Storage Technology driver, which replaces the Maxtrix storage manager driver, was just recently released (and today seems to be listed under the additional download sections of chipset software, so it's officially for "everyone"). Too early to tell if there's any problems, but seems to be a stable driver, otherwise I think you would have heard streams of complains by now. Performance compared to MSAHCI driver seems to be a bit of mixed bag - i experienced pretty much the same performance. so again the decision is really up to you

[idata]

I was thinking much the same, but wanted additional input.

I believe ill go ahead and update the FW.

Thank you very much for advice.

[idata]

Well, Ive successfully updated the FW and now curious about trying the Intel Drivers.

Maybe a dumb question, but Im slightly confused.

The only info I was able to find said that RST was part of the matrix Storage Console.

Do I install the Matrix Storage manager and then the Rapid Storage Technology Update?

Theres a newer version of the Matrix, but for Win7 x64 its saying I need the older one (dated 7/7/09)

Do these include the AHCI driver or do I need to find that elsewhere?

Thanks Again.

[idata]

Hmm..

The Intel Matrix storage manager console, AFAIK, is now superseded. in otherwords, if you want to use these newer drivers, you are best not having any of the old Matrix storage manager installed.

RST comes in two flavours:

• just the drivers (in either x86 or x64 package) which require manual installation via Device Danager (aka the "F6" drivers)
• installer which includes the Rapid Storage Technology console and both flavours of drivers (with only one obviously used, depending on your system architecture) which are installed automatically as part of the installation.

To be honest, the console doesn't really offer much other than information about the drives when youre using plain AHCI, i.e. you can live without it and just install the drivers manually via Device Manager.

Either way, you can't go wrong. Just make sure you have none of the old IMSM stuff..