Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
The SATA controller mode setting is of particular importance. This setting controls how
SATA hard drives function and appear to the system and can have a major effect on OS
installation and driver issues.
OneoftherequirementsofSATAisthatitbecapableoffullyemulatingATA.Thismeans
thataSATAdriveshouldbeabletobesupportedbythesamedriversandsoftwareasPar-
allel ATA drives. Although this is true, adherence to this would mean that additional cap-
abilities such as native command queuing could never be supported. To support features
beyond standard ATA, SATA has a more powerful “native” mode interface called AHCI
(Advanced Host Controller Interface).
The SATA controller on most motherboards has three modes of operation:
•
IDE mode
—Provides legacy ATA emulation with no AHCI or RAID support
•
AHCI mode
—Provides support for native SATA functionality without RAID
•
RAID mode
—Provides both RAID and AHCI support
Any OS or software that supports standard ATA drives also supports SATA drives if the
host adapter is set to IDE mode. This means that, for example, you can install Windows
