If you install Windows 10 on this motherboard and activate AHCI everything will work out of the box but some HDD models will disconnect (sometimes) when Windows puts them to sleep.

If you are in a hurry, here are direct links to drivers:
– Driver for SATA Marvell controller
– Driver for SATA Intel controller

I’ve been using the above on Windows 10 with very intensive workloads without a single hiccup.

Intel did create some very stable motherboards.

Why should you activate AHCI?

Hot-Plugging
This one will only appeal to a small group. On this specific motherboard notice that there is an option on BIOS to disable hot-plugging. The only advantage is that the drive will stop showing on Windows fast eject menu.

NCQ (Native Command Queuing)
NCQ brings massive speed improvements to some usages.

The above image speaks for itself but you can check out more details on Wikipedia.

Intel should NEVER have deleted the drivers

1) Downloading drivers from sites other than the official vendor should be forbidden. It pushes users towards bad behavior. It’s up for everyone to cultivate good digital practices (advocate for password-managers, backups, etc) but big corporations have bigger responsibilities.

2) The brand gets eroded. Every single user who realizes their hardware support was removed will have to go through non-recommended loops to get the drivers and will channel the frustration towards Intel as a brand. Just watch how some software houses are skeptical into launching resources towards Google’s Stadia (game platform) fearing out it will suffer the likes of Google Reader and iGoogle.

3) Cost and graceful deprecation. I completely understand not developing drivers for newer operative systems. I just don’t get why Intel did not “freeze the site” and let the drivers be. The download page would fade into oblivion, sure. Do you really need to delete stuff nowadays? Wayback Machine disagrees and I for one don’t believe that having a deprecated download page (just put a ribbon stating it’s non-maintained), would have any significant financial impact on the likes of Intel.

Who does it RIGHT?

If you feel like experiencing the delight of having DOS push that crackling 8 bit sound again, you are set!

Creative Labs still has the drivers for the very first SoundBlaster available for download!