Should AHCI be enabled for an SSD?

Solution 1:

I would enable AHCI, because:

• It often boosts performance (your SSD might be an exception, but if you run a SSD and a HDD then the HDD will get some boost).
• It offers additional features (e.g. hot-plugging drives).
• It is enabled just about everywhere else and having a system unexpectedly in a ancient compatibility mode would throw me for a loop. I realise this might be a personal thing.

Reasons not to use AHCI:

• You use windows XP (now nearly 12 years old) and do not want load additional drivers during installation. (XP does not understand AHCI. It need a floppy with drivers for that).
• If you have the rare situation where one specific disk is slower with AHCI. In the part you quoted it merely states that it can actually hinder performance. Not that it does, nor that it is significant. Therefor I would test with both AHCI enabled and with AHCI disabled.

Note that if you run Windows 7 (or Linux or BSD), then you can change betyween AHCI and IDE-compatible mode without reinstalling. You do need to enable a service in Windows 7.

Solution 2:

I tested my 256G SSD both with IDE mode and AHCI mode (As an SSD Benchmark). It has a large boost in sequential read (338 MB/s to 488 MB/s), a dramatic boost in 64-threads-4k-read (22.8 MB/s to 175 MB/s) and 64-thread-4k-write (96 to 179). Sequential write increase a little from 255 MB/s to 269 MB/s and access time are not improved so much but also see a little increase.