Samsung 970 EVO NVME SSD : Changing from RAID to AHCI

This was super helpful! Thank you kind internet friend! 

For those who accidentally installed Windows using Intel RST on RAID mode (Such as on my dell xps 15 9560), follow his steps above and after step 7 you will be able to install Samsung's NVMe driver (and the drive also then appears in Samsung Magician). This way you won't have to reinstall windows. 

Dell, where is your guidance at? Why is it that I spent hours on the phone with y'all to no avail? 

Either way, huge thank you again, @Sound of silence!

Worked for changing to AHCI on Dell Vostro 3670.

Thanks very much - saved me a lot of time.

Hi,

Thanks for the detailed steps. I have installed Samsung 970 Evo Plus SSD on my Dell G3 3579 which originally had only single HDD drive with Windows 10 on it. Now 970 EVO Plus is working as a drive. Please note I am unable to install Samsung's own firmware and Samsung's NVME driver, currently its working on some windows driver.

Now I want to migrate OS to this SSD drive using Samsung migration utility, but as mentioned in Samsung Manual it doesn't support RAID and my laptop is RAID. 

I want to avoid fresh OS install and want to just migrate OS from HDD to SSD, hence My question is :

1.Can I move OS first using Samsung data  migration too and then update the Samsung's driver? or I will have to first do the USB Rufus based firmware update, then install Samsung drivers and then do migration of OS.

2.If I move OS to this SSD will the RAID status automatically change during movement of OS from HDD to SSD or I must follow manual steps you mentioned  to change from RAID to AHI and do Clean install only.

I want to avoid clean install as I will need to download whole windows and here it might take very long time. 

Thanks in advance.

Yogesh

I used up to #7 - and it worked beautifully for me! Thank you so much!!

Hi, I can't install the Samsung NVM Express Driver for Samsung NVMe SD 970 EVO Plus and I got the error "Samsung NVM Express device is not connected".

I have Dell XPS 15 9550 and in the BIOS, I have RAID On is enabled in the SATA Operation, so do I need to disable the SATA or enable the AHCI?

What is recommended setting for Samsung NVMe SSD 970 EVO Plus?

@Syed Muhammad Adil  If you want to use the Samsung NVMe driver, then yes you need to be in AHCI mode.  When you're in RAID mode, you have to use the Intel Rapid Storage driver instead.

I am in the same boat with alof of you. For now i need to connect the Samsung pro 970 to clone my HDD but my xps is not detecting it at all.  Any ideas

@Dadawada  I'm not sure where you found that RAID has "far more throughput".  I tested the same SSD in the same system in both RAID and AHCI, with multiple benchmarks performed in each case, and the results were within a margin of error and/or related to temperature differences on the SSD at the time.  But it is true that AHCI is necessary if you want to run the Samsung NVMe driver, and some people just want to know they're getting the best possible performance, regardless of how big a difference there is compared to second best or whether they'd notice the difference in the real world.  But if you're happy with your performance in RAID mode, then don't worry about it.  I use AHCI because I don't have to deal with the Intel RST driver, but I also keep the default Microsoft NVMe driver.  I try to keep things as simple as possible to meet my needs, and in my case I decided that any additional performance of the Samsung driver wasn't worth the potential risks.  At one point the Samsung NVMe driver had an issue whereby just trying to create a VHDX file on the SSD caused a BSoD.  I don't know about you, but if I encountered that issue, I would have wasted a lot of hours and removed a lot of hair before it occurred to me that my vendor-provided NVMe driver might be responsible for that sort of issue.  That's not to say that Microsoft's drivers are always perfect of course, but the more variables you change from a default state, the less likely that research will turn up others having the same issue as you and/or a fix that applies to your situation.  If the issue I described had occurred with Microsoft's NVMe driver, chances are reports about it would have been more widespread and therefore a fix (or at least understanding of the problem) would have come more quickly.  But in this case, the affected user base was limited to people who were running Samsung SSDs, with the Samsung NVMe driver, and also working with VHDX files.

Before you make ANY changes:

Be sure the system is associated with your Microsoft account.  If it's not, associate it:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-link-your-windows-10-product-key-microsoft-account

Then BACKUP the bitlocker key:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4530477/windows-10-finding-your-bitlocker-recovery-key

Finally, turn off Bitlocker.  

Then proceed with the cloning/imaging.  You switch RAID to AHCI before you do:

https://support.thinkcritical.com/kb/articles/switch-windows-10-from-raid-ide-to-ahci

What is the benefit of using AHCI over the RAID setup?

When I run Samsung Magician, yes the drive features of Magician are not available but the drive still benchmarks over 3500MB.

When I researched AHCI vs RAID it appears RAID has far more throughput. I'm just trying to understand is it worth all the setup hassle to move from RAID to AHCI and Samsung NVMe driver...what is the gain?

Yep...my bad...I meant SATA vs AHCI...don't know how I got off on RAID. I think I was multitasking at the time... Let me try this again...SATA vs AHCI...I saw where SATA was faster due to multichannel vs AHCI which said was serial one command after another... So what is the advantage of AHCI over SATA or is there any just to get Magician and the driver to run?

Did you have to have your local account password for Windows 10 after disabling RAID?  I'm asking because some of these guides are saying you have to, albeit it was a different process than this one.  I am not sure I remember my local password as I'm logged in through my Windows Live email address.