Dev Drives?


Steve C

Steve C

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I've just discovered the security setting for Dev Drives in Windows Defender virus & threat protection settings in my Windows 11 PCs. I'm mystified why I have these, what they are for whether I should disable DevDrives. Opinions?
 

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Windows 11 ProCore i7-13700K64 GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Super Gaming OC 8G
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Self build
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Core i7-13700K
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Noctua NH-D14
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Dev Drives are a form of ReFS volumes designed for application developers to host their code repositories on them. Compiling software requires creating a lot of temp files, which are later discarded, and the default Defender real-time settings can negatively impact the compiler's performance. As a compromise, you migrate your dev activities to a Dev Drive, and Defender promises to be less aggressive in scanning the volume. This only happens because Defender knows why Dev Drives exist in the first place.

If you're not a dev, then Dev Drives don't need to be created.
 

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garlin said:
Dev Drives are a form of ReFS volumes designed for application developers to host their code repositories on them. Compiling software requires creating a lot of temp files, which are later discarded, and the default Defender real-time settings can negatively impact the compiler's performance. As a compromise, you migrate your dev activities to a Dev Drive, and Defender promises to be less aggressive in scanning the volume. This only happens because Defender knows why Dev Drives exist in the first place.

If you're not a dev, then Dev Drives don't need to be created.
Click to expand...
It seems I don't actually have any Dev drives and that Defender option is to configure them shoud I have any.

Screenshot 2024-04-05 223127.png
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 11 ProCore i7-13700K64 GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Super Gaming OC 8G
OS
Windows 11 Pro
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Manufacturer/Model
Self build
CPU
Core i7-13700K
Motherboard
Asus TUF Gaming Plus WiFi Z790
Memory
64 GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5
Graphics Card(s)
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Super Gaming OC 8G
Sound Card
Realtek S1200A
Monitor(s) Displays
Viewsonic VP2770 & Dell (secondary)
Screen Resolution
2560 x 1440
Hard Drives
Kingston KC3000 2TB NVME SSD & SATA HDDs & SSD
PSU
EVGA SuperNova G2 850W
Case
Nanoxia Deep Silence 1
Cooling
Noctua NH-D14
Keyboard
Microsoft Digital Media Pro
Mouse
Logitech Wireless
Internet Speed
80 Mb / s
Browser
Chrome
Antivirus
Defender, Malwarebytes Free & AdwCleaner
For those interested, here's a more complete explanation:

learn.microsoft.com

Protect Dev Drive using performance mode - Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Learn how to configure and manage Microsoft Defender Antivirus performance mode to help protect Dev Drive for developer workloads.
learn.microsoft.com

Performance mode compared to real-time protection​

By default, to give the best possible performance, creating a Dev Drive automatically grants trust in the new volume. A trusted Dev Drive volume causes real-time protection to run in a special asynchronous performance mode for that volume. Running performance mode provides a balance between threat protection and performance. The balance is achieved by deferring security scans until after the open file operation has completed, instead of performing the security scan synchronously while the file operation is being processed. This mode of performing security scans inherently provides faster performance, but with less protection. However, enabling performance mode provides significantly better protection than other performance tuning methods such as using folder exclusions, which block security scans altogether.
Click to expand...
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 7
OS
Windows 7

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 11 ProCore i7-13700K64 GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Super Gaming OC 8G
OS
Windows 11 Pro
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Manufacturer/Model
Self build
CPU
Core i7-13700K
Motherboard
Asus TUF Gaming Plus WiFi Z790
Memory
64 GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5
Graphics Card(s)
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Super Gaming OC 8G
Sound Card
Realtek S1200A
Monitor(s) Displays
Viewsonic VP2770 & Dell (secondary)
Screen Resolution
2560 x 1440
Hard Drives
Kingston KC3000 2TB NVME SSD & SATA HDDs & SSD
PSU
EVGA SuperNova G2 850W
Case
Nanoxia Deep Silence 1
Cooling
Noctua NH-D14
Keyboard
Microsoft Digital Media Pro
Mouse
Logitech Wireless
Internet Speed
80 Mb / s
Browser
Chrome
Antivirus
Defender, Malwarebytes Free & AdwCleaner

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 11 Enterprise 25H2
OS
Windows 11 Enterprise 25H2
Pardon for my noobish question:

Could this feature somehow be used to improve gaming performance? Like putting all the games on a dev drive?
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 11 24H2 Version 10.0.26100.2605Core I5 66002 x 8 HeperX Fury DDR4 2666 HZNvidia GTX 1070 ti
OS
Windows 11 24H2 Version 10.0.26100.2605
Computer type
PC/Desktop
CPU
Core I5 6600
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z170x Gaming 5
Memory
2 x 8 HeperX Fury DDR4 2666 HZ
Graphics Card(s)
Nvidia GTX 1070 ti
Monitor(s) Displays
165 HZ Gigabyte GS32QC
Screen Resolution
1440p
Hard Drives
1TB NVME M.2 Samsung 990 Pro
No. Most gaming is read-only activity, your game isn't writing to disk that much.
 

My Computer My Computer

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Windows 7
OS
Windows 7
Has anyone experienced issues with Dev Drive, such as the drive suddenly turning RAW?
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 11 ProAMD 9950X3D2G.Skill DDR5 64gb 6400mhzMSI RTX5090 Suprim Liquid
OS
Windows 11 Pro
Computer type
PC/Desktop
CPU
AMD 9950X3D2
Motherboard
Asus Crosshair Z790 Dark Hero
Memory
G.Skill DDR5 64gb 6400mhz
Graphics Card(s)
MSI RTX5090 Suprim Liquid
Sound Card
Sound Blaster ZxR
Monitor(s) Displays
MSI mpg321ur-qd
Screen Resolution
4K 144 hz
Hard Drives
Samsung 9100 Pro 1TB and 4TB NVME SSD and Samsung 860 Pro 4TB
PSU
Corsair RMx Shift 1200watt
Case
Cooler Master COSMOS C700P
Cooling
Asus Ryujin II
Keyboard
Logitech G413
Mouse
Asus ROG Strix Impact II
Internet Speed
100Mbps
Browser
Egde Chromium
Antivirus
Kaspersky
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