Is the Intel Rapid Storage Driver Software Needed?

[Pleot]

Is it needed if I don't use a Raid Array on my machine? Does it influence performance on SATA devices in any other way other than Raid?

[Chino]

Nope.

[Pleot]

Thanks

[Hawkstorm]

Unless you planning on slapping a 64GB SDD on a HDD to use it like a hybrid is about the only non raid benefit you get with it really.

[Pleot]

That is interesting, you mean I can make a raid using an ssd and an hdd? Never heard of such a stunt, tell me more about it ...

[Hawkstorm]

Not a Raid no, you can get a cheap 64GB HD and use it as a drive cache on a normal HD, inside the Raid software its simple enough to setup.

The HD will act like a Hybrid HD, things you load a lot will speed up considerably though things you don't will come through at normal HD speeds same as any Hybrid Drive.

Its the cheapest way of gaining a speed increase on a normal HD.

64GB is the Max amount of any SDD it can use to do such.

[Pleot]

Sounds nice, maybe one day it will come usefull...