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ister level interface for a Host Controller for Serial ATA. The specification includes a description
of the hardware/software interface between system software and the host controller hardware.
AHCI provides more advanced features including SATA features, but some SATA drives may
not support AHCI, unless they are labeled with AHCI support in its specification.
If your motherboard supporting AHCI, and you have a SATA device, which also supports AHCI,
then you can select IDE option to have fair performance (only PATA, SATA level), or you can
select AHCI to get its best performance.
[RAID Mode] - When you enable RAID, it means all your SATA drives must also support AHCI.
► Aggressive Link Power Management (Appears when “SATA Mode” is set to [AHCI
Mode])
The SATA controller supports auto-generating link requests to the partial or slumber states
when there are no commands to process. This item is used to enable or disable this function.
When enabled, the SATA controller will aggressively enter a lower link power state (partial or
slumber) based upon the setting of the ASP bit (bit 27).
► Serial-ATA Controller 0 (Appears when “SATA Mode” is set to [IDE Mode])
Serial-ATA Controller 0 are the SATA ports 1, 2, 3, 4 of the motherboard. This item allows you
select the mode of the SATA ports. Setting values are: [Disabled], [Compatible], [Enhanced].
► Serial-ATA Controller 1 (Appears when “SATA Mode” is set to [IDE Mode])
Serial-ATA Controller 1 are the SATA ports 5,6 of the motherboard. This item allows you select
the mode of the SATA ports. Setting values are: [Disabled], [Enhanced].
We will use SATA Port 0 as an example to explain the SATA ports features:
► SATA Port 0/1/2/3/4/5
This item shows the SATA device information connected to Port 0/1/2/3/4/5.
► Port Hot Plug (Appears when “SATA Mode” is set to [RAID Mode]/[AHCI Mode])
The hot plug function allows for device detection without power being applied and ability to
connect and disconnect devices without prior notification to the system.
This item is used to
enable or disable hot plug function for SATA hard disks when in RAID/AHCI mode.
► External SATA Port (Appears when “SATA Mode” is set to [AHCI Mode])
This item is used to allow an outside the box connection of up to 2 meters (when using the
cable defined in SATA-IO) or not.
► Staggered Spin-up
Staggered Spin-up (Appears when “SATA Mode” is set to [AHCI Mode])
This item is used to select if the SATA controller supports staggered spin-up on its ports, for
use in balancing power spikes. This value is loaded by platform BIOS prior to OS initialization.
