News - Microsoft details new Windows Server 8 ReFS filesystem

[HEXUS]

'Resilient File System' makes its entrance.

Read more.

[shaithis]

allocate-on-write

Hallelujah!

[Hicks12]

shame windows 8 editions wont get this, it seems like a substantial improvement over NTFS... any reason as to why they arent adding it to the home releases? Seems bit silly to me!.

[crossy]

shame windows 8 editions wont get this, it seems like a substantial improvement over NTFS... any reason as to why they arent adding it to the home releases? Seems bit silly to me!.

I'll agree that this would be great for users of the "desktop" OS. I know they're doing it to maintain some advantages for WS8, but perhaps the "official" reason for not putting in the pleb versions of Windows8 is that RAID hardware is cheap and plentiful for the desktop - especially if you're able to use the features built into many medium and high end boards, (the last two Asus motherboards I've bought have both had RAID 0/1/5 support).

[Scribe]

I'll agree that this would be great for users of the "desktop" OS. I know they're doing it to maintain some advantages for WS8, but perhaps the "official" reason for not putting in the pleb versions of Windows8 is that RAID hardware is cheap and plentiful for the desktop - especially if you're able to use the features built into many medium and high end boards, (the last two Asus motherboards I've bought have both had RAID 0/1/5 support).

RAID5 and Windows desktop don't always play nice mind you, if the hard disks aren't RAID compliant you can still lose data!

Microsoft did remind us in the blog post that NTFS was also introduced on the server only, it's perhaps likely that they'll see how it goes in a controlled environment where they can offer support and maybe we'll see ReFS in Windows desktop 9 or in a later service pack if there's enough demand.

[aidanjt]

Microsoft did remind us in the blog post that NTFS was also introduced on the server only, it's perhaps likely that they'll see how it goes in a controlled environment where they can offer support and maybe we'll see ReFS in Windows desktop 9 or in a later service pack if there's enough demand.

I wouldn't consider a production server to be an experimental filesystem testbed.

[Scribe]

I wouldn't consider a production server to be an experimental filesystem testbed.

I'm sure it's not, however things can go wrong with new technology despite extensive internal testing, there are a lot less servers out there than angry end-users. More likely though, it may be a matter that Microsoft simply hasn't yet perfected easy user-end management interfaces, feedback from the server community could be helpful in this process.

[kingpotnoodle]

I wouldn't consider a production server to be an experimental filesystem testbed.

I'm sure luddites and the cautious will be able to use NTFS in the same way you can still format and install to a FAT32 volume if you like to rock it like it's 1996.

The benefits of ReFS over NTFS far outweigh the danger of "something new", besides if it's a critical production server you should have redundancy and backups so you aren't beholden to the status of one machine.

The probable reason for deploying to servers first is that server admins are far more likely to have the technical expertise to work with something new in the adoption phase whilst there may be software incompatibilities etc and to accommodate this. Once the world has grown used to ReFS then end-users might have a chance...

[aidanjt]

I'm sure luddites and the cautious will be able to use NTFS in the same way you can still format and install to a FAT32 volume if you like to rock it like it's 1996.

The benefits of ReFS over NTFS far outweigh the danger of "something new", besides if it's a critical production server you should have redundancy and backups so you aren't beholden to the status of one machine.

Redundantly storing and backing up screwed up data wont help you in the slightest.

The probable reason for deploying to servers first is that server admins are far more likely to have the technical expertise to work with something new in the adoption phase whilst there may be software incompatibilities etc and to accommodate this. Once the world has grown used to ReFS then end-users might have a chance...

Server admins also generally have a desktop or a dozen at their disposal to experiment and learn new systems.

[crossy]

(I wouldn't consider a production server to be an experimental filesystem testbed.) I'm sure it's not, however things can go wrong with new technology despite extensive internal testing, there are a lot less servers out there than angry end-users. More likely though, it may be a matter that Microsoft simply hasn't yet perfected easy user-end management interfaces, feedback from the server community could be helpful in this process.

You beat me to it - I was just about to post that desktop users (on the whole) aren't that clued in, whereas server admins tend to be a lot more switched on. So your desktop user may file a bug report that says "OMG, my disk array has stopped working", but a server admin will send pages of tracebacks and try and reproduce the problem.

With my open source hat on, I think it's a shame that Microsoft couldn't have used one of the excellent open sourced file systems out there, (and yes, I realise that licensing via GPL would be "problematic").

[shaithis]

We will implement ReFS in a staged evolution of the feature: first as a storage system for Windows Server, then as storage for clients, and then ultimately as a boot volume. This is the same approach we have used with new file systems in the past.

I guess time-scales will depend on success

[iamlorro]

I guess time-scales will depend on success

Yup. Although I want the features now, I'd prefer to have them after they've been tested and proven.

Some of the stuff that will be available in Win 8 (not server) about the pooling of drives into storage groups is good though - link