Intel Rapid Storage Technology 12.5 is faster than 11.7

Remember I recently upgraded the firmware on my Samsung 840 series 250GB SSD? Even though the release notes said that I would see some performance improvements with the DXT08B0Q firmware, I didn’t see any. Then I upgraded the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers to see if it yielded in any improvements.

I originally had version 11.7.0.1013 installed. This was what I had when I flashed the firmware. There was a newer version out when I checked it a few days ago. Version 12.5.0.1066 (download from here). I don’t know what happened to version 12 though. Maybe I didn’t check for a new driver in a while. I only got to know that there was a newer driver from OCN forums.

I first uninstalled the old driver and installed the new one, just to be sure. Updating drivers doesn’t go really well most of the times. Ironically, I always update the NVidia drivers, never uninstall the old one and install the new one. I do that because I haven’t had issues doing so in the past. Sorry, I digress.

BTW, I downloaded the floppy driver, not the Windows drivers. The floppy driver comes with… just the RST driver. But the Windows driver comes with their monitoring and management software as well. Since I don’t use Smart Response Technology or RAID in my PC, there is no need to install them. No need to add more junk to the PC. I want to keep it as clean as possible.

Here are the benchmarks, before and after the update. Both were done after I updated the firmware to DXT08B0Q. For the entire specs of the test rig, click here.

Before (11.7.0.1013)

After (12.5.0.1066)

So you see, there is nice speed bump after the driver update. I don’t think that is a noticeable difference. Heck, you cannot feel the difference between two SSDs to the naked eye, without running benchmarks anyways. I just got this SSD because it was the cheapest 250GB one available back in January. not because it is the fastest.

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology is trying to connect to the service

If you have installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers in Windows 8 (doesn’t have to be RTM I suppose) or any other Windows version and you are getting the following error message when you try to launch the RST control panel, you have come to the right place. Because there is a FIX.

Intel Rapid Storage Technology is trying to connect to the service.

You get this error message because the Intel RST DM Service wasn’t created when you installed the driver. You have to register the service and start it before you can launch the control panel. Apparently the current drivers are not completely compatible with Windows 8.

Edit: Intel have come up with a new driver (version 11.6.0.1030) which is compatible with Windows 8. You can grab it from here. You don’t have to go through the following fix. Thanks Rich.

Here’s how you add the service to the services list.

First launch command prompt as Admin and change current directory to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology”.