SATA: IDE vs AHCI, school me

OK, a new build is being assembled within the next month. Speed of this box isn't super critical, just web, music and very light video converting. So on to the question. I've been doing lots of reading of this subject but can't get definitive answer on this. This build will be with Win Se7en Ultimate, 5 SATA drives (3 hard drives, one blue-ray burner and a multi drive burner) and one old school lowly behind the times IDE (PATA) DVD burner. The boot drive is going to be a Intel X25 80gig SSD. Now some of what I read it I will lose all IDE support if I enable AHCI. Now does this talk about just on the SATA drives or do they also mean I will lose the one old IDE (Pata) interface drive also? I've asked this question at a few places getting engineer speak as replies, never just a yes or no you, can or can't still use the old drive. Not using the old drive is not a deal breaker at all.

Another question. Yes I know google will answer this but want real world "I know from experience" type replies. Pros and cons or AHCI vs IDE mode. Some tests say drives are faster in IDE mode, some say other wise. Also the TRIM function, Win 7 will do this but is this only in AHCI mode?? Again been getting conflicting replies.

*I know I can switch between modes after the install in the registry*

 

AHCI mode enables full SATA features leading to decreased drive wait time, faster data transfer (overall) etc. AHCI may be required for TRIM, but I am not sure on this point.

There are no downsides to enabling AHCI so I would go ahead and do it. The IDE drive you have will have it's own IDE connector on the motherboard, and thus a separate channel to the southbridge controller chip.

Most new motherboards, to maintain compatibility with some optical drives/legacy SATA equipment allow the last 2/3 ports to be in a different "mode" from the other ports, although this depends on motherboard make and model. If you find that your optical drives will not work in ACHI mode then you could try this although I don't see why they wouldn't.

Basic answers: AHCI better, no loss of IDE at all.

 

Thanks for the straight answers collinsl. I know the IDE drive will have it's own port on the mother board, just that the answer I got from the Asus forum wasn't totally clear if doing AHCI mode would disable the IDE header. From what I can gather, and I've been known to be wrong is that this mother board is either all or none as far as the SATA ports go. It also has two SATA ports called "Drive Xpert" that are for Raid, I won't be doing raid. The motherboard in question is a Asus P5Q Pro Turbo.

Thanks again.