Make sure your primary SSD is in the top M.2 slot (usually the one connected directly to the CPU) to avoid PCIe lane sharing with SATA ports.

IRST is a software and driver-level solution designed to manage storage devices connected to Intel chipsets and CPUs. It facilitates communication between the operating system (Windows, Linux, etc.) and the physical storage controller embedded within the motherboard. IRST is responsible for enabling features such as RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) configurations, data caching, and the now-deprecated Intel Optane memory [7†L30-L36][20†L28-L34].

If a driver doesn't work, it's often due to an incompatibility between the driver version and your specific Intel processor generation. Dell provides a useful overview of which driver versions are compatible with which CPU generations:

Your system is an older Intel platform (typically pre-11th Gen) or has in the BIOS but is set to RAID mode . You are setting up an Intel Optane memory module. 2. How to Obtain the Driver

Once you have the driver files ready on a USB drive, you can proceed with the Windows installation.

A common myth is that nonvmd sacrifices performance. Let’s clarify:

is a driver-based solution that improves the performance and reliability of systems equipped with SATA or NVMe storage drives.