Disks and Controllers

DISK_DEVICES

DISK_DEVICES="nvme0n1 sda"

Defines the disk devices on which the following parameters act. Multiple devices are separated with blanks.

Default when unconfigured: “nvme0n1 sda”

When using a 2nd disk e.g. in a Drive Bay, the assignment of device names by the kernel (sda, sdb) can change possibly. In this case it is advisable to do the device assignment using IDs:

DISK_DEVICES="ata-INTEL_SSDSA2M160G2GC_XZY123456890 ata-HITACHI_HTS541612J9SA00_XZY123456890"

The command tlp diskid shows the IDs of all attached disks.

DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_AC/BAT

DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_AC="254 254"
DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_BAT="128 128"

Set the “Advanced Power Management Level”. Possible values range between 1 and 255.

Some selected values are:

1 – max power saving / minimum performance – Important: this setting may lead to increased disk drive wear and tear because of excessive read-write head unloading (recognizable from the clicking noises)
128 – compromise between power saving and wear (TLP standard setting on battery)
192 – prevents excessive head unloading of some HDDs
254 – minimum power saving / max performance (TLP standard setting on AC)
255 – disable APM (not supported by some disk models)
keep – special value to skip this setting for the particular disk (synonym: _)

Default when unconfigured: “254 254” (AC), “128 128” (BAT)

Values for multiple disks are separated with blanks.

Note

Until version 1.3 this setting will not be applied to USB and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) disks.

DISK_APM_CLASS_DENYLIST

Version 1.4 and newer

DISK_APM_CLASS_DENYLIST="usb ieee1394"

Exclude disk classes from advanced power management (APM). Possible values:

sata
ata
usb
ieee1394

Default when unconfigured: “usb ieee1394”

Separate multiple classes with spaces.

Caution

USB and IEEE1394 disks may fail to mount or data may get corrupted with APM enabled. Be careful and make sure you have backups of all affected media before removing usb or ieee1394 from the denylist!

DISK_SPINDOWN_TIMEOUT_ON_AC/BAT

DISK_SPINDOWN_TIMEOUT_ON_AC="0 0"
DISK_SPINDOWN_TIMEOUT_ON_BAT="0 0"

Timeout value until the spindle motor stops when the disk is idle. Valid settings:

0 – disabled
1..240 – timeouts from 5 seconds to 20 minutes (in increments of 5 seconds)
241..251 – timeouts from 30 minutes to 5.5 hours (in increments of 30 minutes)
keep – special value to skip this setting for the particular disk (synonym: _)

Values for multiple disks are separated with blanks.

Note

SSDs don’t have moving parts, therefore this setting is “don’t care” for them and can remain disabled.
Stopping the system disk for extended periods of time is unlikely to work, because applications and system daemons wake up the disk frequently. However for a 2nd disk in a swappable drive slot or the Ultrabay that is not accessed permanently, this setting may be quite useful.

DISK_IOSCHED

DISK_IOSCHED="mq-deadline mq-deadline"

Sets the I/O scheduler per disk. Possible values below.

Multi queue (blk-mq) schedulers:

mq-deadline – recommended
none
kyber
bfq
keep – special value to use the kernel’s default scheduler for the particular disk (synonym: _)

Single queue schedulers:

deadline – recommended
cfq
bfq
noop
keep – special value to use the kernel’s default scheduler for the particular disk (synonym: _)

Default when unconfigured: keep

Note

Single queue schedulers are legacy now and were removed together with the old block layer for kernels ≥ 5.0.
Multi queue (blk-mq) may need kernel boot options scsi_mod.use_blk_mq=1 and dm_mod.use_blk_mq=y as well as modprobe mq-deadline-iosched|kyber|bfq on kernels < 5.0.

SATA_LINKPWR_ON_AC/BAT

AHCI Link Power Management (ALPM)

SATA_LINKPWR_ON_AC="med_power_with_dipm"
SATA_LINKPWR_ON_BAT="med_power_with_dipm"

Sets the power management mode for the SATA links connecting disks and optical drives. Possible values (in order of increasing power saving):

max_performance – minimum power saving / max performance
medium_power – medium power saving and performance
med_power_with_dipm – best balance between power saving and performance (recommended, kernel ≥ 4.15 required)
min_power – max power saving / minimum performance

Default when unconfigured: med_power_with_dipm (AC and BAT)

Use empty strings (“”) to disable the feature completely. Multiple values separated with spaces are tried sequentially until success.

Note

Until version 1.5 a second value was provided in the default configuration as a fallback for older kernels. TLP determines automatically if med_power_with_dipm is available and otherwise uses the second value.

SATA_LINKPWR_DENYLIST

This parameter was renamed with version 1.4. Until 1.3 it was called SATA_LINKPWR_BLACKLIST. 1.4 and newer also recognize the old name.

SATA_LINKPWR_DENYLIST="host1"

Exclude SATA disks from AHCI link power management (ALPM). This is intended as a workaround for SATA disks not bearing link power management.

Disks are specified by their host. Refer to the output of tlp-stat -d to determine the host; the format is hostX. Separate multiple hosts with spaces.

AHCI_RUNTIME_PM_ON_AC/BAT

Version 1.4 and newer

Warning

This has been an experimental feature in previous versions. Only with version 1.4 the risk of system freezes (and data loss) with the multiqueue scheduler and kernel < 4.19 is eliminated.

AHCI_RUNTIME_PM_ON_AC=on
AHCI_RUNTIME_PM_ON_BAT=auto

Controls runtime power management for NVMe, SATA, ATA and USB disks as well as SATA ports. Possible values:

auto – enabled (power down idle devices)
on – disabled (devices powered on permanently)

Note

Works only on disks defined in DISK_DEVICES
SATA controllers are PCIe bus devices and handled by the corresponding RUNTIME_PM settings

Default when unconfigured: on (AC), auto (BAT)

AHCI_RUNTIME_PM_TIMEOUT

Version 1.4 and newer

AHCI_RUNTIME_PM_TIMEOUT=15

Seconds of inactivity before a disk or a port is suspended. Effective only when AHCI_RUNTIME_PM_ON_AC/BAT is activated.

Default when unconfigured: 15