SATA Drive Set-Up Question

[Ebon_Praetor]

I have the components ordered for a new system build. I've built home systems before, but not for awhile now, and this is my first build with a SATA drive so I have a question about set-up. For reference, here is what I'm putting together:
BIOSTAR TF560 A2+ AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 560 ATX Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Windsor 2.8GHz Socket AM2 Processor
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

I'll be running Windows XP, but I will not be using RAID. My motherboard gives two other options for SATA set-up: AHCI Mode or IDE Mode. I understand that if I want to use the AHCI driver for SATA, I need to install the the driver with a floppy during the F6 option during XP setup. If I set the BIOS to IDE Mode, windows will install the generic XP driver which I can replace with the NVidia IDE enhanced driver for SATA after windows has finished installing. Here's my question-

Which is the best way to go?? Will AHCI offer better performance? I've read that some people have had trouble when trying to use the AHCI driver, and that IDE Mode is easier to set-up, but is the performance as good? I'd like to go the route that will give me the best performance. Thanks to anyone for your input!

[ski]

ACHI mode provides faster HD performance mostly during multiple, simultaneous read/write requests, which normally happens in a server.
However, it can actually slow down performance in games and during sequential read/write requests, which normally occur in home systems.

[glc]

I'm not hijacking this thread, but I'd like to get the current thoughts straight on this issue, I'm a bit behind the curve on this. I figure the discussion will be very pertinent to what the OP is asking.

I'm going to be building a workstation for a customer in a couple of weeks. It's going to be based on an Asus P5K series board with a Q6600. OS and programs are going to be on a Raptor 150 and data will be on a Seagate 1 TB drive. Data is going to be a TON of digital pics, scans to PDF, Word docs, and a Quickbooks database. OS will be 32 bit XP for now. Multitasking will be heavy.

1. AHCI or IDE mode?
2. Dual DVD burners - both SATA or one SATA one IDE?

[LittleGhoti]

I have an almost identical set up and it is noticeably faster for multitasking with AHCI. I am presently using one IDE DVD burner and 1 SATA.

[glc]

Have you had any issues with trying to boot with a SATA optical drive in AHCI?