Raptor 150, No TLER Tool and Performance Good

[DasFox]

To many people are spreading a rumor saying WD has released a tool to disable the TLER mode for the Raptor 150, (WD1500ADFD). Well to set things straight, because I bought one of these and wanted to know without a doubt what is going on and that I would be getting it right for my money, let's face it these drives aren't cheap.

I called up WD and spoke to them about this, I was even escalated to 'Level 2' Enterprise support, the people that know and handle these drives. They told me, they never made, or released any such tool and TLER does not slow down, or hinder performance in a non raid drive setup.

If anyone has anything different to add to this, then I'd like to hear it, since WD seems to be saying otherwise, no tool to disable it and no performance decrease in a non raid setup.

THANKS

 

[Bobthelost]

I thougth TLER would only ever kick in if something went wrong with the drive? As such you'd only ever see it when your HD was starting to die.

 

[DasFox]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
I thougth TLER would only ever kick in if something went wrong with the drive? As such you'd only ever see it when your HD was starting to die.

No, they told me that it checks when you access the hard drive each time. And without a raid controller what it does is allow the TLER to recheck it more then once to make sure there are no errors, any and all, but that in a non raid setup there is no controller to check again, so that it may come back with a "Windows Error" saying something was corrupt, missing, etc.. a typical windows error screen when in fact it is ok, BUT only is reporting this SIMPLY because there was no raid controller, telling, allowing TLER to recheck.

Aloha

 

[Bobthelost]

*rereads post slowly to try and understand what it means*

Thanks, i learn something new everyday. Once i work out what all the long words mean i'm sure that'll cover me for today

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: DasFox

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
I thougth TLER would only ever kick in if something went wrong with the drive? As such you'd only ever see it when your HD was starting to die.

No, they told me that it checks when you access the hard drive each time. And without a raid controller what it does is allow the TLER to recheck it more then once to make sure there are no errors, any and all, but that in a non raid setup there is no controller to check again, so that it may come back with a "Windows Error" saying something was corrupt, missing, etc.. a typical windows error screen when in fact it is ok, BUT only is reporting this SIMPLY because there was no raid controller, telling, allowing TLER to recheck.

Aloha

That is not my understanding of how TLER works. Source?

ALL drives will reread the data if they have problems accessing the disk. TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) limits the amount of time the disk can spend trying to reread the data before reporting failure, since it screws up some RAID controllers if the disk goes off for 10 or 20 seconds trying to reread the requested block and never comes back. It shouldn't impact 'normal' performance at all.

 

[DasFox]

My source was "Level Two Enterprise Tech Support" on the telephone:

1-877-934-6972

I'm not sure I'm explaining this correctly, all I'm trying to say is what they told me was, in a Raid setup the controller will allow it to recheck the drive, without Raid there is no raid controller telling TLER to recheck. The tech support said that TLER works in non raid as well, but since there is no controller to tell, allow it to reread there could be reports that come back saying there are errors when in fact it is fine and there are non.

The biggest benefit I was most concerned was, I was told there is no slow down in performance.

The downside is in a non-raid setup TLER won't be as accurate in reporting, so a error might not be one at all for the hard drive or bad, files, etc...

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: DasFox
My source was "Level Two Enterprise Tech Support" on the telephone:

1-877-934-6972

I'm not sure I'm explaining this correctly, all I'm trying to say is what they told me was, in a Raid setup the controller will allow it to recheck the drive, without Raid there is no raid controller telling TLER to recheck. The tech support said that TLER works in non raid as well, but since there is no controller to tell, allow it to reread there could be reports that come back saying there are errors when in fact it is fine and there are non.

The biggest benefit I was most concerned was, I was told there is no slow down in performance.

The downside is in a non-raid setup TLER won't be as accurate in reporting, so a error might not be one at all for the hard drive or bad, files, etc...

I strongly suspect that what they told you is either inaccurate or just BS. That is *not* how TLER works from what I've read about it.

WD PDF on TLER

It just lowers the amount of time that the drive will attempt to recover a bad sector so that RAID controllers won't assume it is dead.