Hello all,

Sorry but I'm quite new to this. I have bought a new PC with a Neo Forza 256GB SATA 600 SSD and Windows 10 Pro x64. Scanning through the Gigabyte storage drivers webpage for my motherboard, I found the following drivers:
- Intel SATA Preinstall driver (For AHCI /RAID Mode)
- Intel Rapid Storage driver

I got 4 questions.
1. I understand that the Intel SATA Preinstall driver (For AHCI / RAID Mode) should be installed during the Windows installation if Windows can't recognize any storage device. However, is there any benefit to install it if Windows does recognize the storage device?

2. Is the Intel Rapid Storage driver necessary? I read on Intel's info page that just 1 storage device could still benefit from it, even if I don't have RAID (which I'm not planning to).

3. Is the Intel Rapid Storage driver needed even if I have already installed the SATA Preinstall driver before during the Windows installation?

4. My Gigabyte mobo's support page only offers the .exe file to install RST but I want to install the "pure" drivers only. When opening the .exe file with 7zip I found quite a lot of files and 2 .cab files; media1.cab and drivers.cab. Should I extract the drivers.cab file and ignore the media1.cab file?

I would appreciate it so much if someone could clarify these for me.

1. Yes, it can be better, but not required if windows recognizes anyway
2. Again, not necessary but it is better to use, better for performance
3. Yes, see above, windows drivers are poor performers.
4. If you want the inf/pure drivers only, go to Intel's site and download the version you want in the inf non-exe format (zip)

Thanks for the answers guys.

@Fernando
If the Preinstall SATA driver is the same as the RST driver, does this mean that I can just install one of them?

And how come Intel says that non-RAID storage devices also benefit from RST?

@Fernando Sorry if I didn't catch your point. The versions of the Preinstall SATA driver and the RST driver are both the same (which makes sense since you said they are both RST). But I still don't understand if I should install both or just either one of them.

Ok, in that case, I will only install the post-OS RST driver then.