Refs file system (stand alone NOT Storage spaces)

I think you can configure it to login without having to press CTRL+ALT+DEL and remove the requirement to tell why you restart or shutdown. Yes, it is a little extra work, but you can make it behave like regular Windows 11. It also supports the same drivers and the same apps, excluding third-party antivirus and backup. You can even play games. If you tweak user interface with Open Shell, Explorer Patcher and the like, they also work on Windows Server and you can replace the system icons by modifying the same system files.

jimbo45 said:

Thanks for the post -- but I really want to hear from people who have tried this and their experiences with it.
NTFS definitely is aging -- it's been around for donkeys years while disk technology and OS software has improved dramatically over the years. Since home based computers have got to the point where CPU processing and more RAM doesn't really improve the typical user response - the biggest bottleneck is usually in the I/O subsystem (both software and hardware). I'm surprised in at least a beta or development version of W11 there wouldn't be some attempt at a more modern file system to be introduced as an option.

Click to expand...

This is the wrong way of looking at it. The bottleneck for the typical home user isn't NTFS, it's the fact that software RAID isn't more common. If you have a RAID group that does striping then it's not stuck waiting for a single disk. NTFS doesn't do storage pools, it sits on top of whatever volume manager you have and Windows is way behind in this field.

Some Linux filesystems like ZFS integrate a filesystem with a storage manager. ReFS is middling attempt to compete in this space.

But neither product shines unless you have enough disks to allow for striping. A single disk ReFS volume isn't going to be faster than NTFS, so for the home user it's more of a curiousity. Which Dev Home strangely tried to promote... Having a storage pool means non-technical users can't just plug and unplug drives at random, which they're used to doing today.

ReFS loses several features that NTFS provides, like EFS file encryption (required for paid Store apps and Game Pass) and extended attributes (those extra tags added to files in Explorer). Enterprise customers won't care, but some home users will miss those features.

In other words, do it in a spare disk only for the experience. Don't do it on your main system.

Indeed, for a home user on a single disk, this is purely curiosity.
No RAID setups here.
Note that even for a single disk there are some things to consider.
There is no classic check disk after power failure. There is actually no UI check disk option the way home users are familiar with.
What I'm interested is, if any of the resilency features can spare data corruption that can happen at power failure on single disk usage. Namely using the CoW (Copy-on-Write) feature that ReFS provides.

I hope you won't have to find out the hard way...

I hope not. It is an experiment of its own.
Well the last 10y+ I don't recall any power outages that took my PC down with issues.
The data is backed up in any case. So far no issues with the ReFS disk. Just for simple -one-partition- data disks this works fine.

Hopachi said:

What I'm interested is, if any of the resilency features can spare data corruption that can happen at power failure on single disk usage. Namely using the CoW (Copy-on-Write) feature that ReFS provides.

Click to expand...

All filesystems that have journaling (including NTFS), will address the issue of rolling back partially committed writes. For when you unexpectedly crash or lose power to the system. You don't need COW for that, since the journal is the equivalent of doing a COW operation.

Something to keep in mind, there are multiple ReFS versions across different Windows versions. This is still in development.
I stick with one older version of the FS, the one from Win8.1 I believe.
I heard stories of the disk being RAW after some OS upgrades. This is troublesome, for instance someone who updated ReFS version via Windows dev-channel that lost the data on the drive or something. I try to avoid this. Keeping it static, use on a stable release. In case of an issue, less possible chaos to look into.

garlin said:

All filesystems that have journaling (including NTFS), will address the issue of rolling back partially committed writes. For when you unexpectedly crash or lose power to the system. You don't need COW for that, since the journal is the equivalent of doing a COW operation.

Click to expand...

I like posts like this.
Thanks for the input.

Hopachi said:

Something to keep in mind, there are multiple ReFS versions across different Windows versions. This is still in development.
I stick with one older version of the FS, the one from Win8.1 I believe.
I heard stories of the disk being RAW after some OS upgrades. This is troublesome, for instance someone who updated ReFS version via Windows dev-channel that lost the data on the drive or something. I try to avoid this. Keeping it static, use on a stable release. In case of an issue, less possible chaos to look into.

Click to expand...

How do you select version? You would have to use a third-party utility. File Explorer in Windows 11 will use the latest version. Also if the disk is raw after an upgrade is a no go for me, let alone inexistent compatibility.

spapakons said:

How do you select version? You would have to use a third-party utility. File Explorer in Windows 11 will use the latest version. Also if the disk is raw after an upgrade is a no go for me, let alone inexistent compatibility.

Click to expand...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem]
"RefsDisableUpgrade"=dword:00000001

Use the format command to create a legacy ReFS v1.2 filesystem, instead of whatever ReFS version is included on your Windows release.

format E: /u /fs:refsv1 /i:enable

garlin said:

Use the format command to create a legacy ReFS v1.2 filesystem, instead of whatever ReFS version is included on your Windows release.

format E: /u /fs:refsv1 /i:enable

Click to expand...

and placing this record when upgrading from Windows, for example, 23h2 to 25h2, it would keep the current version of refs without upgrading to the most current version 3.14 3.15

Now we have to see if it is worth using the old legacy version or if the new MS did not give some extra performance in the new version in relation to the old Server 2012 version?

If you had a 30TB HD, would you use the old reFS 1.2 or the latest version 3.14 of 25h2?

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem]
"RefsDisableUpgrade" =dword: 00000001

garlin said:

XenoPanther/Windows ReFS versions.en.md

Click to expand...

Absolutely! Here's the comparison between ReFS 1.2 and the current ReFS 3.14 in English:

---

Performance and Feature Differences: ReFS 1.2 vs. ReFS 3.14​

• ReFS 1.2:
  
  • Introduced with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.
  • Focused on data integrity and resilience, but lacked advanced performance optimizations.
  • No support for data deduplication or compression.
  • Limited metadata handling and slower performance in high I/O scenarios.
• ReFS 3.14:
  
  • Part of Windows Server 2019 and newer Enterprise editions of Windows 10/11.
  • Significantly improved performance, especially for large volumes and metadata operations.
  • Supports block-level deduplication, reducing storage usage for backups and repetitive data.
  • Implements copy-on-write for metadata and file updates, enhancing reliability and speed.
  • Better integration with Storage Spaces, enabling automatic error correction and scrubbing.
  • More efficient handling of large files, virtual machines, and backup workloads.

---

Compatibility Notes​

• ReFS 3.x volumes cannot be mounted on systems that only support ReFS 1.x.
• ReFS creation is restricted to Enterprise and Pro for Workstations editions of Windows 10/11.

---

If you're dealing with large-scale storage, virtualization, or backup-heavy environments, ReFS 3.14 offers clear advantages in speed, efficiency, and reliability.


Would you like help evaluating whether it's worth upgrading your current setup to ReFS 3.14?

spapakons said:

I hope you won't have to find out the hard way...

Click to expand...

Ha! I needed this mentioned.
A small update to what I encountered lately...
In short: I moved back to NTFS.

*** if it is not supported by the official UI, don't force it in via other means ***

Quick recap, my ReFS was a migrated / moved v1.2 version from old Win8.1 Pro. It was working, though technically in sort of a read-only survival state as it seems.
Daily usage had recent minor issues worth noting:
* large files read-write is superb, however: large text files, code, JSON, etc showed some serious slowdowns and hangs during compression (zip, 7z) - same operations done on NTFS was done instantly.
* ReFS formatted by command line (presumably in new v3.x version) was not supported (blocked) by the OS - while at the same time v1.2 ReFS was opened and accessed at same time - that weirdness alone and the file compression issues forced me to clean up this chaos directly.
* as this v1.2 format is legacy by now, getting rid of it is the wise move, before everything turns to RAW during next random patch-Tuesday.

Status for Win11 Pro 25H2 26200.8875:
* Old v1.2 ReFS is still readable, writable for now.
* Formatting to in-house ReFS is not supported.
* Formatting to new DevDrive mode (ReFS) is allowed via Settings UI - gives error without details - but only afterwards you will see that is NOT SUPPORTED in Explorer or Disk Management in Windows 'Pro' edition.

Conclusion:
If you don't have 'Pro for Workstations' or 'Enterprise' edition, don't bother forcing ReFS or you'll get blockades or glitches. Diskmgmt froze a couple of times during my last formats. I don't intend in revisiting these experiments on this PC.
I finally removed the ancient ReFS v1.2 partitions and moved to NTFS on all disks here.