V Series and AHCI Driver question

[idata]

Hello everyone.

I have a Gigabyte P45 Motherboard, which has the ICH10 controller.

I have 2 SSDs, and 2 Spinning HDs.

The main SSD where Win7 is installed is a 40GB V series Intel. The other SSD is a secondary and non-Intel (If that matters)

So far everything has been fine. The board is running in AHCI mode, and at this point is using the default Microsoft AHCI driver.

The problem I have with this is that Windows sees ALL my drives as removeable devices.

Both SSDs and both Spinning drives are listed as seperate, removeable devices.

I tried to update the AHCI driver to the latest Intel version.

It appears to wrok, and resolves the issue of all drives being seen as removeable.

But heres my question.

It instals the driver and shows it as a ICH10R AHCI driver in the device manager.

My board is a ICH10. It does not have the R designation.

Is this a problem or am I missing something here?

For what its worth, I do not have anything as RAID. All my drives run as solo disks.

Although in a couple weeks the 40GBV will become my secondary, and the OS drive will be replaced with a 80GB Intel drive.

So I would love to resolve this ahead of time because Ill likely do a clean install.

Thank you.

[idata]

I imagine that the Intel toolbox will not work with non-Intel SSDs because they do not have the same controller as the Intel SSDs do. Will you comment on that DuckieHo? The Intel SSD Toolbox detects non-Intel SSDs (and all HDDs) and does not allow them to have the Management tools used with them.

As for the Intel chipset/driver and non-Intel SSDs, from what I've read the Intel AHCI driver iastor is considered to be the best driver for use with any SSD (in SATA II mode), although there may be exceptions of course. That recommendation was given by independent PC hardware review websites not affiliated with Intel.

[idata]

As far as the driver itself, everything seems to be perfectly fine and running quite well so far.

As suggested, the fact it intalls as a ICHR10R (even though the board is supposed to be a ICH10) seems to have no negative impacts.

I can confirm The Intel Tool box does recognize & list my secondary SSD drive. (Vertx if that matters)

However, with very limited options.

It will only allow the use of 2 options on a non-Intel SSD

1) View the Drive information

2) Check Smart Attributes.

All else is disabled with the "Intel Drive only" message.

BTW, this may not be the best place to ask but when are the next Gen Intel Drives supposed to be released?

Im wanting to pick up a 120GB M series but might hold off a bit if its near.

[idata]

Well... from what I've read the new Intel G3 SSDs will be available in Q1 of 2011, but that may change, perhaps earlier for the holiday season.

Also, the new Intel 120 GB and 40 GB SSDs that are available now, are rumored to contain the same new NAND chips as the G3 line will use. I cannot confirm that is true of course, and I don't know if these two new SSDs are classified as G2 or G3.

I won't post links to "leaked" information about Intel's new SSDs on Intel's forum, but if you do some searching I imagine you'll find it. Is it worth waiting? Good question, the new 120GB model is a great value and I doubt the official G3 line will be as cheap as that, although they are supposed to be cheaper relative to their capacity in GB relative to the G2 line. Like I said, do some searching to help you make a decision.