NTFS vs ReFS File System: What’s the Difference?
Jan. 27, 2023After many years of inactive development, Microsoft seems to have added support for theReFS file systemon Windows 11. It has reignited the debate between NTFS and ReFS, and which file system is better for Windows. So if you are not aware of Microsoft’s new file system, we have come up with an explainer on what is ReFS and in what aspects it’s better than NTFS. Apart from that, you can learn about ReFS file system working model, performance metrics, and maximum storage limit. So on that note, let’s go ahead and compare NTFS vs ReFS.
In this comparison between NTFS and ReFS, we have explained ReFS, its working mechanism, key feature differences, and its current development. You can expand the table below and move to any section you want.
Fast forward to now, and it seems Microsoft is again testing ReFS on Windows 11. With Windows 11 21H2 (22557) build and the recently released Windows 11 25281 build in the Dev channel,ReFS v3 boot support has been added to Windows 11. But what is ReFS and how is it better than NTFS? To briefly answer the question, ReFS has been designed to improve on the shortcomings of the popular NTFS file system. ReFS can conveniently scale with large data, includes built-in features to correct errors and avoid data corruption, offers data integrity on-the-fly and can perform better in some scenarios.
ReFS is not a new file system developed from the ground up. It actually uses some of the NTFS code and has derived most of the features too. Unlike the B-tree structure in NTFS,ReFS utilizes B+ trees, which include root, internal nodes, and leaves. The root can be a node with multiple children or a leaf. The on-disk structure for both metadata and file data is based on B+ trees.
Apart from that, ReFS uses anallocation-on-write(also called copy-on-write) strategy for metadata to avoid data corruption during an unexpected shutdown. In a single instruction, it can read and write data on files, lowering disk input and output operations, and bringing disk usage, memory, and power consumption down.
The first and foremost feature that makes ReFS a resilient file system, unlike NTFS, is the built-in ability to accurately detect corruption and fix them without rebooting the system. Basically,ReFS canautomatically repair data corruption, making it stand on par with competing file systems like Btrfs and ZFS. It employs something called integrity streams that basically analyze the checksums for metadata to precisely detect the error. In fact, it can also optionally inspect the checksums for file data, which may take more time, but the data can be fully validated.
Apart from that, ReFS comes with Storage Spaces integration, which repairs the errors automatically. It does so by using the alternate copy of the mirrored data provided by Storage Spaces. Not to mention, the disk or volume can be in use while correcting the error, a key feature offered by ReFS. So you don’t need to reboot your computer to run the “chkdsk” command-line tool torepair Windows disk errors. In fact, you don’t need to run any tool for error correction as it has a self-repairing ability.
And in case, there is no mirrored copy of the corrupt data, it removes the namespace from the local area, but ensures to keep the volume online. Finally, there is ascrubber in ReFSthat periodically analyzes the volume, checks for corrupt data and corrects them.
Apart from that, ReFS has this unique feature that splits the volume into two logical storage tiers, optimized for eitherPerformance or Capacity. If you want to quickly write data to the disk, they will go to the Performance tier and will be efficiently moved to the Capacity tier. For data that is rarely accessed, they are transferred to the Capacity tier.
NTFS was developed roughly 30 years ago and at that point in time, dealing with large sets of data was not something of concern. However, now, servers and computers regularly handle petabytes of data so Microsoft needed a scalable file system and ReFS aims to deliver exactly that. To give you an idea, NTFS supports a maximum file size of 256 TB whereas ReFS can go up to 35 PB. That’s35000 TB of data. Similar are the figures for volume size as well. And now with ReFS version 3.7, it also supports volume compression just like other modern file systems.
Here we will learn about the advantages and disadvantages of ReFS and NTFS. Refer to the below table for a quick overview.NTFSReFSAn established file system compatible with a host of systemsRelatively new, mostly used in Windows ServerSupports maximum file and volume size of 256 TBSupports maximum file and volume size of 35000 TBVery stableThere are bugs that need to be ironed outNo self-repairing abilitySupports self-repairing and avoids data corruptionCan’t work on online disksCan work on online disksSupports BitLocker encryptionSupports BitLocker encryptionSupports Access-control lists and File IDsSupports Access-control lists and File IDsNo Block clone and Sparse VDL supportSupports Block clone and Sparse VDL for faster performanceNo File-level snapshotsSupports File-level snapshotsSupports file system compressionNo file system compressionBootable using removable mediaOfficially not bootable using removable media as of now
There were many reasons behind this decision. First, ReFS wasunstable for a consumer releaseand was failing without any warning. Experts said that recovery in such a scenario can get very hard. Apart from that, the thin volume of ReFS was expanding to a full-size ReFS partition despite the data being static. And in some cases, it was unreliably correcting file errors. As on Windows 11, though users can boot the OS reliably, they are unable to install Microsoft Store apps on a ReFS volume. So I would say, it’s a long way before ReFS becomes the standard file system on Windows, replacing NTFS.
ReFS or NTFS: Are You Ready to Move to a New File System?
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