Western Digital Raptor & "YS" Series Drives -

[TheBeagle]

Recently, (Feb. 7, 2007) Gary Key, Senior Editor for AnandTech, wrote an outstanding review article about the newest generation of Raptor drives from Western Digital. Since I have utilized many of those drives in building PCs for myself and friends, I was interested in what he had to say in that review, and in particular what he found out about how well those drives function in RAID arrays, since I have several RAID 1 arrays that use those drives. Gary especially got my attention when he wrote: "Although TLER is disabled by default, a utility is available from Western Digital to enable TLER." Wow, that was sure news to me! What "utility" was he talking about?

As some of you may know, TLER stands for Time Limited Error Recovery, which is a vital feature in RAID arrays. If you need to learn more about that feature, here's the link to Gary's review article: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2922. I was able to get a copy of the "utility" from WD, and it was startling as to what it revealed.

First of all, there is a SEPARATE setting for the "read" feature of TLER and the "write" feature of TLER. However, both of those setting are DISABLED from the factory on all Raptor drives, and can only be activated by using the "secret" utility! I say "secret" because NOWHERE on the WD web site or in any of the WD literature is there ANY MENTION whatsoever that the advertised TLER feature is disabled from the factory; so, obviously, a consumer would never have any way to know that it needed to be activated.

Furthermore, this "utility" also works on the "YS" series of drives that are advertised by WD to be specifically for RAID usage. However, the utility reveals that ONLY the "read" TLER function is activated from the factory, and that the "write" function is disabled. WD does not acknowledge that situation either in its advertising or literature. However, WD does state in its limited Technical Support information that the TLER function on "YS" series drives CANNOT be disabled! That is indeed curious, since the "secret" utility has a specific command, "TLER-OFF," which disables both the read and write TLER functions on Raptor and YS series drives.

If any of you are using new generation Raptor or YS drives in RAID arrays, and especially if you are having problems with the drives "dropping out" of the arrays (which are the exact problems that I was having), you sure as hell want to get your hands on a copy of the "secret" utility from WD. Once I obtained and ran that "secret" utility on the Raptor RAID arrays that I have (and my friends have as well), and activated both the read and write TLER features, we have had NO INSTANCES of drives "dropping out" of those arrays, and the drives seem to work better than ever.

Please do not misunderstand the purpose of my comments here. I am NOT bashing the WD Raptor or YS drives. Quite to the contrary, they are great drives and I intend to keep using them. What I am damn upset about is WD's intentional withholding of this vital piece of information; and worse yet, their (WD) apparent intentional action to create a false impression about the TLER function being totally active in the Raptor and YS drives. No matter how WD tries to spin the facts, they lied to us about the TLER feature, and they ought to own up to it and never let it happen again.

[DanW]

how dod you get hold of this secret utility then shirlock?
_________________
Main Rig - mobo: AV8-X cpu:4600+ psu:Phantom hsf:fanless scythe ninja case:P180 cpu: 7800gs (7900 chip) (almost silent except for the HDD)
Server Rig - cpu:2000+ psu BeQuiet ATX1.3 450w hsf: AeroCool HT-101 gpu:GeForxe MX440 (now near silent)

[whiic]

I don't know how he got it, but you can get it here:
http://rs11.rapidshare.com/files/2821776/WDTLER.zip

[DanW]

[Ihmemies]

Would this actually work with other WD drives too...? Or maybe firmware in KS drives doesn't support it.