Microsoft developed a better file system called ReFS (Resilient File System) to replace the older NTFS (New Technology File System). It’s part of Windows 10 and is designed to find and repair issues with your computer’s storage drives.
One cool thing about ReFS is that it’s good at keeping your data safe and making sure it’s available when needed. It also makes your computer work faster and can handle huge amounts of data without slowing down how fast you can read things. Here are some things you can do with it:
- Integrity Streaming: ReFS uses checksumming for metadata and file data to detect damage;
- Integration Storage Space: ReFS, when used with a mirror or parity space, can repair automatically detected damage using a copy of data provided by the computer. The task takes place online and does not require volume downtime.
- Data salvage: if a volume becomes corrupted and there is no backup, ReFS can remove the corrupted data and keep the volume online while resolving most of the uncorrectable years;
- Proactive error correction: ReFS validates data before it reads and writes and introduces a data integrity scanner known as a debugger;
- Mirror-accelerated parity: Mirror-accelerated parity can deliver superior performance and efficient data storage;
- Accelerated VM operations: ReFS introduces functionality to improve the performance of virtualized workloads;
- Variable cluster sizes: The file system supports 4K and 64K clusters.
The features implemented in ReFS date back to a less developed form of ZFS (“Zettabyte” File System), a file system developed by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corporation) in 2004, originally developed to support OpenSolaris. This system provides all the features used in ReFS, such as compression and native encryption.
What is the origin of ReFS?
Starting in 1993 with Windows NT 3.1, the NTFS (New Technology File System) has been widely used. It’s popular because it’s the main choice for newer systems like Windows Vista and Windows 7. However, other file systems like Ext3, Ext4, and ReiserFS for GNU/Linux and HFS and UFS for MacOS have shown to be faster, more efficient, and less likely to get fragmented.
A new file system called ReFS has been developed based on the NTFS model. What’s cool about ReFS is that it works well with NTFS disks and can automatically check and fix issues on the disk using advanced tools.
For everyday users, you might not notice a massive difference between them. But some say that ReFS is better because it can help reduce file fragmentation and is also compatible with older systems like FAT and FAT32.
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