Arch Linux

blackout23

Member

Registered: 2011-11-16

Posts: 781

How to find out if sata_nv is set to AHCI or IDE?

Hello,

I'm thinking about buying a small SSD (64 GB) since I'm only using 7 GB of my 120 GB anyway.
My Laptop (HP dv6365eu) is around 5 years old and only supports SATA I. Unfortunately the
BIOS doesn't allow any configurations whatsoever.

For best performance I'd want to make sure that the controller is set to AHCI mode. The wiki
suggests that I'd simply add "ahci" to the modules in mkinitcpio.conf. But I'm not sure if that
will work since I'm using an nVidia nforce SATA controller with the sata_nv driver.

Kind Regards,

blackout24

Fackamato

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 579

Re: How to find out if sata_nv is set to AHCI or IDE?

Hello,

I'm thinking about buying a small SSD (64 GB) since I'm only using 7 GB of my 120 GB anyway.
My Laptop (HP dv6365eu) is around 5 years old and only supports SATA I. Unfortunately the
BIOS doesn't allow any configurations whatsoever.

For best performance I'd want to make sure that the controller is set to AHCI mode. The wiki
suggests that I'd simply add "ahci" to the modules in mkinitcpio.conf. But I'm not sure if that
will work since I'm using an nVidia nforce SATA controller with the sata_nv driver.

Kind Regards,

blackout24

I think only AHCI supports NCQ, so you could 'dmesg|grep -i ncq' after a freshly booted system and check. Also, dmesg |grep -i sata_nv or grep for nvidia, that'll tell you some stuff.

blackout23

Member

Registered: 2011-11-16

Posts: 781

Re: How to find out if sata_nv is set to AHCI or IDE?

[tim@archhost ~]$ dmesg|grep -i ncq
[    1.294681] sata_nv 0000:00:0e.0: Using SWNCQ mode

Is this what you mean? Is SWNCQ the same as NCQ which would indicate the AHCI use?