Successor to NTFS... ReFS or something different?

[kiddingguy]

I read an article once about Apple’s APFS and how this is optimized for SSD’s.
 

I run Windows machines, and I am wondering which file system is optimized best for SSD? NTFS or ReFS, or are Microsoft or other vendors working on something different?

And... will it speed it systems up, launching faster, startup smoother, be more safe, have better options and applications etc etc? And what can other purposes maybe be?

[spaceship9876]

ReFS is only available on windows servers now i think and it might have been removed. You should stick to using NTFS.

[REM2000]

ReFS also does not support booting, only for use as a data drive. 

 

My view is that NTFS is already pretty well suited to SSD as NTFS is an evolving filesystem, so you'll find that Windows 10 has a pretty up to date version of the file system. 

 

From the macOS point of view, something had to be done. HFS+ had been propped up for the past 20 years and was really creaky, with file system crashes and performance issues, so for apple they had to move to APFS which is the same FS they use in the phones and iPads too. 

 

For me my biggest worry is bitrot, I could use ZFS more but I would like to see more checksumming introduced, ReFS does support this however I don't know the roadmap Microsoft has for this and at the moment they have been really taking away the features from the desktop versions, so the check summing I would love to see introduced to NTFS. APFS supports checksumming but only for metadata not for the actual data. 

[Thygod]

ReFS is optimized for data resiliency.  It has self-repairing features that NTFS does not have, you could compare ReFS to linux file systems such as ZFS and BTRFS.  The resiliency features protect against data corruption that may occur because of bit-rot or RAID mistakes.  It is not intended to be optimized specifically for SSD although you can use different configurations of drives and SSD  to provide "mirror-accelerated parity".  A Windows 10 environment would probably not provide any tangible benefits, unless you are running Windows 10 Workstation with a multi terabyte array with hybrid SSD and HDD.

For a comparison between NTFS and the most recent version of ReFS you can take a look at this article:

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/refs/refs-overview

[adrynalyne]

4 hours ago, spaceship9876 said:

ReFS is only available on windows servers now i think and it might have been removed. You should stick to using NTFS.

It’s available in Windows Pro for Workstations as well. 

[George P Global Moderator]

We don't hear much about it by they quietly update NTFS over time.  I'd say it's pretty good for SSDs right now so I personally don't see the need to use something else.

[adrynalyne]

7 hours ago, kiddingguy said:

I read an article once about Apple’s APFS and how this is optimized for SSD’s.
 

I run Windows machines, and I am wondering which file system is optimized best for SSD? NTFS or ReFS, or are Microsoft or other vendors working on something different?

And... will it speed it systems up, launching faster, startup smoother, be more safe, have better options and applications etc etc? And what can other purposes maybe be?

The funny thing is, there are multiple complaints about how apfs is slower than hfs+, even on SSDs. 

[spaceelf]

The only thing we really know is happening that should be good is DirectStorage, and we know very little about it yet.

[kiddingguy]

1 hour ago, LostCat said:

The only thing we really know is happening that should be good is DirectStorage, and we know very little about it yet.

sounds promising... but bring it also to Windows (and not just XBOX) 

[spaceelf]

7 minutes ago, kiddingguy said:

sounds promising... but bring it also to Windows (and not just XBOX) 

I only mentioned it because they already said it was coming to Windows.  I don't imagine it'll be available at the same time, though.

[kiddingguy]

2 hours ago, LostCat said:

I only mentioned it because they already said it was coming to Windows.  I don't imagine it'll be available at the same time, though.

Maybe the successor (and paid-upgrade version to Windows 10?) a.k.a. Windows365/Microsoft365 (Windows+Office) for consumers...?! Somewherish end 2020/2021?

I mean... Windows has got to be a business model for Microsoft and with all these free upgrades from way back to Windows 10, there's no real Windows cash cow 

[JaredFrost]

12 hours ago, kiddingguy said:

I read an article once about Apple’s APFS and how this is optimized for SSD’s.
 

I run Windows machines, and I am wondering which file system is optimized best for SSD? NTFS or ReFS, or are Microsoft or other vendors working on something different?

And... will it speed it systems up, launching faster, startup smoother, be more safe, have better options and applications etc etc? And what can other purposes maybe be?

While not technical advice, it's just my experience with ReFS.

 

<story time>

 

While recently building a new NAS I thought, hey might as well use ReFS right? I mean, it's resilient, who doesn't want that.

 

So I built the new NAS with ReFS for the data partition, but after about a week of use the filesystem fell over for no apparent reason, any attempt to access it would be met with "the volume repair was not successful" asking Professor Google gave me the impression this issue is far too common for my liking, others experienced the same, it's working fine then out of no where, it's just gone, all gone, and the "free" solution is to recreate the partition and restore from latest backup, that's hardly a solution in my mind, but since I still had the old storage array, I did that, only this time using NTFS.

 

</story time>

 

So personally it's unlikely I'll willingly use ReFS again.

 

But from your question, as others have already said, ReFS can't be used as a boot partition, so  for now it's NTFS.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Regarding a successor to NTFS ... yea ... it is NTFS.

 

Regarding DirectStorage ... it is just an I/O ... not a file system.  I think you could compare it with something like Superfetch (which ReadyBoost uses) but on steronands (see what I did there?).  I wouldn't be surprised that even if/when it comes to Windows 10 .. it will require a dedicated drive for it to function and probably not the system disc.

 

Though not much is really known about DirectStorage ... this is on the XBox page:

Quote

DirectStorage – DirectStorage is an all new I/O system designed specifically for gaming to unleash the full performance of the SSD and hardware decompression. It is one of the components that comprise the Xbox Velocity Architecture. Modern games perform asset streaming in the background to continuously load the next parts of the world while you play, and DirectStorage can reduce the CPU overhead for these I/O operations from multiple cores to taking just a small fraction of a single core; thereby freeing considerable CPU power for the game to spend on areas like better physics or more NPCs in a scene. This newest member of the DirectX family is being introduced with Xbox Series X and we plan to bring it to Windows as well.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/03/16/xbox-series-x-glossary/

...which is what I'm sourcing my _theory_ on.  I couldn't find what file system the Xbox Series X will use...though I wouldn't be shocked if it is NTFS.

[spaceelf]

3 hours ago, Jim K said:

Regarding a successor to NTFS ... yea ... it is NTFS.

 

Regarding DirectStorage ... it is just an I/O ... not a file system.  I think you could compare it with something like Superfetch (which ReadyBoost uses) but on steronands (see what I did there?).  I wouldn't be surprised that even if/when it comes to Windows 10 .. it will require a dedicated drive for it to function and probably not the system disc.

 

Though not much is really known about DirectStorage ... this is on the XBox page:

...which is what I'm sourcing my _theory_ on.  I couldn't find what file system the Xbox Series X will use...though I wouldn't be shocked if it is NTFS.

I am aware that it is not a file system, but it could include/require one.  We have no proper information to go on really.  My guess is it will require NVMe and potentially a decompression block on the hardware, other than that there's not enough information.