When it comes to file systems, it is important to know the differences between one and the other, especially in the professional field. The file system most used with Windows is certainly NTFS but the development of alternative solutions has not stopped in the meantime. Back in 2012, Microsoft presented ReFSacronym of Resilient File System. It was first introduced in Windows Server 2012 and later included in later versions of the operating system, such as Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. What’s new is that as of today thewindows 11 update it also happens on ReFS formatted system partitions. Because it is important?
Il file system ReFS in breve
ReFS is designed to offer greater reliability, resiliency and performance than the already tested file system NTFS. It is also designed for archiving critical or business data that requires increased reliability and better protection against data corruption.
Despite multiple guarantees offered, the management of metadata improved over NTFS, support for snapshot for backup, restore and for creating “restore points”, improved performance, support for large volumes (tens of petabytes versus 256 TB of NTFS), ReFS remains little used today.
This does not mean, however, that Microsoft is working on it and aiming a lot: since ReFS is considered an excellent solution, for example, for managing virtual machinesthis file system is the protagonist for the creation of Dev Drives, directly supported by the new open source software for Microsoft Dev Home developers.
Windows 11 update opens the door to ReFS
For the first time in many years, Microsoft seems determined to extend the use of file system ReFS to a much wider audience of users. So much so that the most recent preview versions of Windows 11 they not only support ReFS but even allow booting the operating system from a partition formatted with this file system.
A further indication of the direction in which Microsoft is looking comes from the behavior of thein-place upgrade of Windows 11. Assuming you have installed Windows 11 on a ReFS partition, previously the operating system refused to update the installation showing an error message. From now on, how confirm reports on Twitterit is instead possible to directly update a Windows 11 installation made on a ReFS volume, simply by clicking – for example – on the file setup.exe of the installation media.
Microsoft recently updated the ReFS file system itself – to check it, just type the command fsutil fsinfo refsinfo C: at the command prompt, substituting a C: the drive letter corresponding to the volume formatted with ReFS.
Granted that Microsoft will in the future offer the possibility of using NTFS alongside ReFS: users and IT administrators choose one or the other depending on their needs and requirements. On the other hand, Microsoft still keeps reporting that ReFS it is not a “bootable” file system: which is not true given the novelty introduced in Windows 11.