Enter The Matrix: Slice out and get the best part from your hard drives

fritzman said:

Hey... Welcome Back!

I don't personally have any experience with those two drives so can't speak for the differences...

I do understand however, that the Blacks should be kept away from Matrix arrays... iirc, I think it's to do with TLER.

Given the reliability you're used to and the length of time you are keeping the drives... why not go to Raid Edition drives? I think the W/D ones have 64Mb cache and also have the two read heads like the Blacks, just designed for the purpose.

Just my 2c

Hope it helps.

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harlam357 said:

Well, both the Greens are 5400rpm... I need (am already used to) 7200rpm drives. So both of those are out.

So what's this TLER... based on the specs on the Egg the Blacks DO NOT have TLER and the Raid Edition drives DO have TLER. It looks like an enhancement that you'd want on a RAID array. Is that what you're saying? It looks like you're saying TLER is a bad thing and if that's the case then the Raid Edition drives shouldn't be used with Matrix either.

My biggest problem with the RE class drives is they're 2x as expensive. Four drives would set me back more than $1000. While I could get the Blacks for less than $600 w/a spare (I currently have a brand new spare for my 6400AAKS setup).

More to think about... I have to also consider right now may not be the right time to upgrade. Please clarify regarding the TLER issue you spoke of... sources for this information?

Thanks for the 2c fritz!

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harlam357 said:

I'm still confused... why are the Blacks getting the bad rap for use in RAID-5 (or better) for lack of TLER? No other WD desktop drives have TLER either. I guess I'm already in the same boat using my WD6400AAKS (pre-Blue line) setup and I've had no problems.

I already found the wdtler utility... but it looks like any newer drives are already going to have the capability to enable TLER locked out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Drive_error_recovery_algorithms

So what about your 5x2TB Green array fritz? Which drives are you using for it and do you have any benches in this thread I could check out?

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harlam357 said:

I'm just reading all kinds of horror stories regarding lack of TLER on drives... either that, or they end up working just fine (and I'm assuming just to start with). Makes me wonder if I should just stick with my current setup. It's just been running great for over a year... and I have to assume that these early AAKS drives don't have TLER enabled either.

I'll post back if I decide to upgrade the array... I think I'll post up a thread and see what folks have to say on this specific topic of TLER and RAID5. Thanks again for your help fritz!

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harlam357 said:

I'm just reading all kinds of horror stories regarding lack of TLER on drives... either that, or they end up working just fine (and I'm assuming just to start with). Makes me wonder if I should just stick with my current setup. It's just been running great for over a year... and I have to assume that these early AAKS drives don't have TLER enabled either.

I'll post back if I decide to upgrade the array... I think I'll post up a thread and see what folks have to say on this specific topic of TLER and RAID5. Thanks again for your help fritz!

Click to expand...