Am I using IDE or AHCI?

Question

I recently installed an SSD in my laptop, but according to what I've read AHCI mode is preferable to IDE mode for SATA drives, something that is set in the computer's BIOS. However, I don't have any such option in my BIOS. Is there a way to check which SATA mode I am using from inside the OS?

I own a Sony Vaio S13 running Ubuntu 12.04.1.

Solution 1

dmesg | grep -i ahci

[    1.971970] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: version 3.0
[    1.972034] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: irq 41 for MSI/MSI-X
[    1.972071] ahci: SSS flag set, parallel bus scan disabled
[    1.986971] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 6 ports 6 Gbps 0x7 impl SATA mode
[    1.986974] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: flags: 64bit ncq sntf stag pm led clo pio slum part ems apst 
[    1.986980] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: setting latency timer to 64
[    2.003333] scsi0 : ahci
[    2.003408] scsi1 : ahci
[    2.003473] scsi2 : ahci
[    2.003536] scsi3 : ahci
[    2.003596] scsi4 : ahci
[    2.003658] scsi5 : ahci

Solution 2

You can also look at this place by the command:

lspci -v

00:1f.2 SATA controller: ... SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
    Subsystem: blabla...
    ...
    Kernel driver in use: ahci
    Kernel modules: ahci

Comments

[João André]

am I right to conclude that if all the scsiX entries are in the ahci mode, all of the sata ports in the laptop are set to AHCI mode?

[Rinzwind]

yes @JoãoAndré .

[knb]

...and what does that line mean?: SSS flag set, parallel bus scan disabled

[Livy]

Easier to read than Rinzwind's answer. On some distro where lspci command is not available, however, dmesg seems to be the universal solution.