ReFS
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Full name | Resilient File System |
| Introduced | 1 August 2012 with Windows Server 2012 |
| Structures | |
| Directory contents | B+ tree |
| Limits | |
| Max volume size | 35 petabytes by Windows; 278 bytes with 16KB cluster size (264 × 16 × 210) in theory |
| Max file size | 35 petabytes by Windows; 264−1 bytes in theory |
| Features | |
| Attributes | Yes |
| Transparent compression | No |
| Data deduplication | Yes, since v3.2 debuting in 2016 v1709 |
| Copy-on-write | Yes |
| Other | |
| Supported operating systems |
|
| Website | learn |
Resilient File System (ReFS), codenamed "Protogon", is a Microsoft proprietary file system introduced with Windows Server 2012 with the intent of becoming the "next generation" file system after NTFS.
ReFS was designed to overcome problems that had become significant over the years since NTFS was conceived, relating to changes in data storage requirements. These requirements arose from two major changes in storage systems and usage (the size of storage in use large or massive arrays of multi-terabyte drives now common), and the need for continual reliability. As a result, the file system needs to be self-repairing (to prevent disk checking from being impractically slow or disruptive), along with abstraction or virtualization between physical disks and logical volumes.
The key design advantages of ReFS include automatic integrity checking and data scrubbing, elimination of the need for running chkdsk, protection against data degradation, built-in handling of hard disk drive failure and redundancy, integration of RAID functionality, a switch to copy/allocate on write for data and metadata updates, handling of very long paths and filenames, and storage virtualization and pooling, including almost arbitrarily sized logical volumes (unrelated to the physical sizes of the used drives).