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  • TLER Utility - WDTLER.ZIP Western Digital Utility

    Attached is the Utility to turn on or off TLER on Western Digital drives. (wdtler.zip)

    Information from From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

    "Time-Limited Error Recovery (TLER): Used by Western Digital for a hard drive feature that allows improved error handling in a RAID environment. In some cases, there is a conflict whether error handling should be undertaken by the hard drive or by the RAID controller, which leads to drives being marked as unusable and significant performance degradation, when this could otherwise have been avoided. Similar technologies are called Error Recovery Control (ERC), used by competitor Seagate, and Command Completion Time Limit (CCTL), used by Samsung and Hitachi.

    Effectively, TLER and similar features limit the performance of on-drive error handling, to allow RAID controllers to handle the error if problematic. In a non-RAID environment, such features are unhelpful, and manufacturers do not recommend their use.

    TLER can be enabled or disabled on certain Western Digital drives, using the tool WDTLER on a DOS bootdisk. Western Digital states that this feature cannot be disabled. However users and independent editors have have reported that this feature can be disabled. The tool allows this feature to be disabled by setting the values for read and write to 0 seconds.

    By default, Western Digital Enterprise Drives such as Raptor, Caviar RE2 and RE2-GP (RAID Edition) come with TLER Read "Disabled" (0 seconds) and TLER Write "Enabled" (7 seconds) while Desktop Drives such as Caviar SE, SE16, and GP come with TLER Read and Write Disabled (0 seconds).

    The ability to change the TLER option on Western Digital Desktop and Enterprise hard drives coincides with the current trends in desktop computing allowing the user to have the flexibility of buying a start-up computer with a single desktop class hard drive and then upgrading to two or more drives in the future. Most of the motherboard manufacturers these days use chipsets from Intel and nVidia that include on-board RAID controllers as a standard option and anywhere from 4, 6, or up to 10 SATA ports allowing for easy upgrades to multiple hard drives and RAID capability without the requirement of purchasing specialized add-on cards. Additionally, having the choice of changing the TLER option gives the user the flexibility of purchasing the high performance drives such as the Western Digital Raptor that have TLER enabled and that are designed to run in a RAID array and using them as stand-alone single drives in their desktop computers and disabling the TLER option to enable better data recovery and lower chance of corruption and drive failures.

    It is important to understand that TLER should be "Enabled" for a hard disk if it is being used in a RAID array to prevent the recovery time from a disk read or write error from taking too long and preventing the RAID controller from flagging the drive as failed and dropping the drive from the array. If a drive is dropped from an array due to it passing the timeout threshold of the RAID controller due to taking too much time performing error correction, the hard disk will need to be manually re-added to the array, requiring a re-build and re-synchronization of the hard disk with the rest of the disks in the array. In the remote possibility that two drives that do not have TLER enabled happen to encounter a disk error that takes too much time to recover, both of these drives might be flagged as failed and dropped from the RAID array, effectively breaking the array and requiring either a complete data restore from backup or manual intervention to force the array to re-recognize the drives as clean and online.

    The WDTLER utility allows for the enabling or disabling of the TLER parameter in the hard disk's firmware settings allowing the user to determine the best setting for his particular usage as either a stand-alone or RAID drive. This utility is written for the DOS operating system and you will require a DOS bootable disk with this utility on it to use it.

    The WDTLER utility works on and makes changes to all the connected and compatible Western Digital hard drives to the computer. It is important to remember that any change will affect all the hard drives. If you only wish to change specific hard drives on your computer then you should disconnect the other hard drives before you use this utility, then reconnect them after you are finished.

    The WDTLER utility comes with three batch files, TLERSCAN.BAT to get the current state of the TLER setting on all the hard drives, TLER-ON.BAT to Enable TLER, and TLER-OFF.BAT to Disable TLER. The included TLER-ON.BAT will set the Read & Write TLER time to 7 seconds. If you wish to use a custom timeout value, you can use the WDTLER.EXE utility directly with the -r# -w# parameters to specify how many seconds the Time Limit value should be."

    Information from Technician:

    Please know that I have not found any motherboards with on-board raid that will work with Western Digital Velociraptors. No matter what settings or TLER on or off will allow them to work in a Raid 0, 1 or 5. One or two of the drives will always fail when doing a disk intensive operation. The only efficient way to have the velociraptors work in a raid configuration is to use a raid card.
    Western Digital recommends the same, and will tell you they do not recommend using on-board raid chips.

    I am using a Areca Arc1210 Raid card with 3 velociraptor drives in a Raid 5 configuration and it works flawlessly. The performance is incredible. Raid 5 with 64kb striping, I get 650+mb/s burst speed and 200+mb/s average read speed in HDTune.
    I also get Disk Mark score of over 1800!
    Attached Files

  • #2
    Posted From: Cableguy

    Thanks for this great article. Big Help!
    TLER-ON.BAT will set the Read & Write TLER time to 7 seconds. What would you recommend the time be set at. Thanks!

    Comment


    • #3
      Always let it set it to the default at 7 seconds. You do not have to change these settings at all. If you do, you could make your disks unstable. If you are running a raid situation, the default 7 seconds works the best.

      Under testing conditions, I have tried all different settings, and it made NO performance improvements at all. All it allows is for the drive to make corrections within 7 seconds. This will prevent the drive from causing the raid array to fail.

      Making it less can cause write failures, and drive instability. Making it more can cause the drive to fail out of the array.

      Most all raid controllers allow the 7 seconds before listing the drive as a failure, this is how the 7 seconds came about.

      This will work with all normal drives. If you use a Western Digital Velociraptor, then you will need to get an external raid card:

      I run 3 velociraptors in a Raid 5 Configuration. I tried 3 different motherboards with on-board raid controllers and none would work. I tried Intel ACH9R, ACH10R, and even Nvidia onboard raid, one or two of the drives would drop out as a failure, even with TLER turned on. I worked extensively with Western Digital support, and they do not recommend on-board raid with the velociraptor drives. I tried every configuration possible, and they are correct. I tried raid 1, Raid 0, and Raid 5, and always had a problem with at least one of the drives dropping out of the array.

      The only thing we can figure is that the 10,000 RPM drives are so fast that the on-board controller bottlenecks and causes a drive to drop out. Remember, on-board raid is Software Raid, it is not real hardware raid.

      So. What I ended up doing was trying a HighPoint Raid card, an external raid card, pci-e x1. External Raid, but not true hardware raid. The card worked, but the performance in a Raid 5 was less then if I used one of the velociraptors by themselves!!! That was a waste. HighPoint support is a total waste of time. They will not take phone calls and you can only email them. It takes them a week to get back to you and then you never get a good answer. I will never buy Highpoint again.

      I then bought an Areca ARC-1210 true hardware raid card. Very easy to install, and very easy to configure. The performance is out of this world. I am so extremely impressed with the Raid Card and the performance of the velociraptors! I chose the raid 5 setup for speed and redundancy.

      Attached is some performance specs from my setup with 3 western digital velociraptors (300gig) and a Areca ARC-1210 Raid card.

      If you just have normal 7200rpm drives, on-board raid is fine, and you should enable TLER. If you choose the velociraptors, then go with the ARC-1210 raid card. You won't be sorry!
      Attached Files

      Comment


      • #4
        Posted by: Cableguy

        I have this card SAS 6iR SAS internal RAID adapter, PCI-Express from Dell with 2 western digital velociraptors (300gig) drives. Would I still need to use this TLER Utility? Thanks!

        Comment


        • #5
          Hi, According to Western Digital, ALL raid configurations need to have TLER enabled. This prevents the drive from trying to perform an error correction that could take minutes and cause your raid to fail. If you are running a Raid 0, you do not want to lose all your information if a drive drops out of the array.

          So, I would follow Western Digital's instructions of having the TLER on for any and all raid arrays. IF you are still unsure, you could also email/check with the raid card manufacturer.

          Thanks!

          Comment


          • #6
            Posted by: Cableguy

            This is my card SAS 6iR SAS internal RAID adapter. When I run the setup file it tells me that no drives reconized or my card is not supported. Is there another file from WD that will work with my card? I contacted Dell and they say that they have never heard of this zip file from WD. Thanks!

            Comment


            • #7
              This is a definite utility from Western Digital. I received it from them directly.

              You can not turn on TLER through your raid card. What you have to do is hook both drives up to your motherboard and set them in IDE mode. Then boot from a floppy, run the TLER-ON.BAT and it will turn both TLER's on, Both drives. MAKE sure ALL other hard drives are disconnected though!!!

              Comment


              • #8
                Posted by: rguyler

                I am having problems reading the TLER settings. I've gone through the BIOS (Award) and the only place I see to set the SATA to IDE mode is in the RAID configuration, where I enable the RAID but disable each channel. According to the BIOS description, this should make each drive run in ATA mode. I can't seem to locate any other setting that would do this.

                So, the real root of my problem is that the TLER utility can't read or write the TLER settings. Has anybody tried this with a newer drive? Mayeb WD has locked us out on the non-RE drives so we can't do this?

                If I can't change these settings I guess I'll go ahead and setup my FreeNAS box anyway and use it to setup a software mirror and hopefully not run into the timing issues others are since I won't be using a controller.

                Thanks

                Comment


                • #9
                  NOTE:
                  • The WDTLER.EXE tool is no longer available from Western Digital. WD phone support confirmed that new disks cannot have the TLER setting changed, i.e. RE disks are only suitable for RAID arrays and Caviar are only suitable for non-RAID use. WD also say that using the WDTLER.EXE tool on newer drives can damage the firmware and make the disk unusable.

                  NOTE:
                  • I found the NOTE above on Wikipedia. I am not sure if it is entirely accurate. I just bought a brand new velociraptor drive with the latest firmware. TLER was enabled from factory. I disabled TLER with the WDTLER ulitity with no issues.

                  USAGE:

                  The WDTLER utility allows for the enabling or disabling of the TLER parameter in the hard disk's firmware settings allowing the user to determine the best setting for his particular usage as either a stand-alone or RAID drive. This utility is written for the DOS operating system and you will require a DOS bootable disk with this utility on it to use it.

                  The WDTLER utility works on and makes changes to all the connected and compatible Western Digital hard drives to the computer. It is important to remember that any change will affect all the hard drives. If you only wish to change specific hard drives on your computer then you should disconnect the other hard drives before you use this utility, then reconnect them after you are finished.

                  The WDTLER utility comes with three batch files, TLERSCAN.BAT to get the current state of the TLER setting on all the hard drives, TLER-ON.BAT to Enable TLER, and TLER-OFF.BAT to Disable TLER. The included TLER-ON.BAT will set the Read & Write TLER time to 7 seconds. If you wish to use a custom timeout value, you can use the WDTLER.EXE utility directly with the -r# -w# parameters to specify how many seconds the Time Limit value should be.

                  NOTE:

                  In order to use the WDTLER utility, you must create a bootable floppy disk, install all the utility files on the disk. Boot your computer using the utility disk.

                  Now, before you run the WDTLER utility there is a few things you need to know:
                  • ONLY have the drive(S) attached to the computer that you want to adjust the TLER settings on. Having other drives hooked up, can cause damage to the drives no intended to be altered.
                  • You must have your drives plugged in to the ACTUAL motherboard, not through a raid card of any kind, or the utility will not see the drive(s).
                  • You must have your motherboard set at IDE drives, not RAID or ACHI, or the WDTLER utility again will not see the drive(s).

                  Any Questions, Ask!

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Posted by: rguyler

                    Ahh...I guess we got busted.

                    Thanks for the reply!

                    PS - I haven't run across any posts saying that people are having issues with these drives using OS-configured RAID1. Have you?

                    Personally I would never do this with Windows but recovering from a bad drive in Linux or BSD is a piece of cake.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      When you tried to use the WDTLER utility, you must boot up using a bootable floppy drive and run the utility from DOS. You cannot see the TLER settings in the BIOS.

                      I have ran raid configurations with several different drives with the onboard controller without any problems. And without any need to adjust TLER.

                      The only time I ran into a situation where I could not RAID using the onboard controller on several different motherboards is when using the Velociraptor drives.

                      I believe it is due to the 10,000rpm speed and amount of thoroughput. One or all of the drives will drop out of the raid when doing disk intensive operations.

                      That problem was solved with the adding of the Areca ARC-1210 true hardware raid card.

                      This addition was WELL worth the expense. My system is extremely fast. There is nothing to compare it too.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        WDTLER USAGE:

                        The WDTLER utility allows for the enabling or disabling of the TLER parameter in the hard disk's firmware settings allowing the user to determine the best setting for his particular usage as either a stand-alone or RAID drive. This utility is written for the DOS operating system and you will require a DOS bootable disk with this utility on it to use it.

                        The WDTLER utility works on and makes changes to all the connected and compatible Western Digital hard drives to the computer. It is important to remember that any change will affect all the hard drives. If you only wish to change specific hard drives on your computer then you should disconnect the other hard drives before you use this utility, then reconnect them after you are finished.

                        The WDTLER utility comes with three batch files, TLERSCAN.BAT to get the current state of the TLER setting on all the hard drives, TLER-ON.BAT to Enable TLER, and TLER-OFF.BAT to Disable TLER. The included TLER-ON.BAT will set the Read & Write TLER time to 7 seconds. If you wish to use a custom timeout value, you can use the WDTLER.EXE utility directly with the -r# -w# parameters to specify how many seconds the Time Limit value should be.

                        NOTE:

                        In order to use the WDTLER utility, you must create a bootable floppy disk, install all the utility files on the disk. Boot your computer using the utility disk.

                        Now, before you run the WDTLER utility there is a few things you need to know:
                        • ONLY have the drive(S) attached to the computer that you want to adjust the TLER settings on. Having other drives hooked up, can cause damage to the drives no intended to be altered.
                        • You must have your drives plugged in to the ACTUAL motherboard, not through a raid card of any kind, or the utility will not see the drive(s).
                        • You must have your motherboard set at IDE drives, not RAID or ACHI, or the WDTLER utility again will not see the drive(s).

                        Any Questions, Ask!

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I just added a 4th 300gig Velociraptor drive to my Raid 5 Configuration. Running all the drives with TLER OFF, and using the Areca ARC-1210 raid card. Performance is off the charts!!

                          I have been using 3 velociraptors on my ARC-1210 hardware raid card for a long time now, with TLER OFF, and I have never had any problems at all.

                          I will post pictures of the speed tests with the 4th drive added later tonight.


                          If you want true performance and reliability, I strongly suggest you buy a REAL hardware raid card. Utilizing software raid's or onboard raid configurations are a huge step down in performance.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Here is the results (picture attached) with the 4th 300gig Velociraptor drive added to my Raid 5 Configuration. Using the Areca ARC-1210 raid card. Performance is off the charts!!

                            I have been using 3 velociraptors on my ARC-1210 hardware raid card for a long time now, with TLER OFF, and I have never had any problems at all. So this time when I added the 4th drive, I turned TLER ON, all drives. No difference in performance.

                            Check out the attached Photo for the Results!!


                            If you want true performance and reliability, I strongly suggest you buy a REAL hardware raid card. Utilizing software raid's or on board raid configurations are a huge step down in performance.
                            Attached Files

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Posted by: pk442

                              Now that WD has taken the TLER utility off of its web site, is there any place that I can still obtain it?
                              OKAY< I found it - you have to go all the way to the bottom of the first post. It does not looked like that many have downloaded it from here.

                              Has anybody tried, or used the TLER Utility with the 1TB 7200rpm WD Caviar Black drives? Are there any specific issues with these and their dual processor setup? I am planning to set up 4 of these in a raid 1+0 (mirrored + stripped - also called Raid 10) setup. I'd hate to fry over $400 of hard drives.

                              Thanks for any info / help - PK

                              Comment

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