This driver is actually based on the RSTe branch, it installs a filter driver that registers to the host lower filter reg keys.

SMART is not available in this driver and it causes MmSt (see poolmon/pooltag) to rapidly consume paged pool when heavy file access (searching for instance) is performed.

The removal of this driver is not as simple as uninstalling the driver (which is also performed when doing an RST upgrade install). The iastorA and iastorF(filter) services are not disabled and removed during the update, and the iaStorF filter is not removed from the HDD bus lowerfilter, which means the driver is still loaded even with a different version of the IRST driver. This as the case, it results in the MmSt paging out heavily when buffering pte's during a search.

To remove this driver properly, the user must do the following exactly in this order

Install a different RST driver or revert back to the standard microsoft ahci driver

Reboot

Open an elevated command prompt
type sc delete iastora - enter
type sc delete iastorf - enter

This flags the services for delete (DO NOT RESTART YET)

Open up regedit
search for iaStorf.
3 results should find it under the REG_MULTI_SZ titled LowerFilters (only 1 is required to be removed as explained below)

or find it directly @, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Removing from all of them isn't required, the controlset002 is a backup control set incase you need to use last working configuration.

to make things simpler, just remove it from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\currentcontrolset\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and it will remove it from the current control set in use.

Do not remove the entire REG_MULTI_SZ key, especially if it has multiple filters in the list, only remove the one titled iastorf.

After this reboot
Windows should boot successfully, and you should readily notice a lower non paged pool value as a result (i wasn't able to isolate it to affecting a specific non paged pool, but it does affect MmSt, a paged pool value)

Once this is done, delete the iastorA and iastorF sys files from C:\windows\system32\drivers and reboot again

Then open device manager and set the show hidden devices setting, a ghosted iastorA device should be listed which will completely remove now (It won't remove so easily as long as the corresponding .sys file still exists hence the previous instructions).

At this point, you can go through the registry again and remove any instances of iastorA and iastorF that still exist.

VBA-M

... What?
Are you saying that Intel storage drivers still are in early alpha?

11.5.1109 is definitely alpha!, the 11.5 branch is to give raid users trim but it has pool leaks and doesn't uninstall properly.

VBA-M