Microsoft Announces ReFS, a New Filesystem For Windows 8 459
bonch writes "Microsoft has shared details about its new filesystem called ReFS, which stands for Resilient File System. Codenamed 'Protogon,' ReFS will first appear as the storage system for Windows Server and later be offered to Windows clients. Microsoft plans to deprecate lesser-used NTFS features while maintaining 'a high degree of compatibility' for most uses. NTFS has been criticized in the past for its inelegant architecture."
My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Funny)
Not only is this good for Windows system, but overall network architecture.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How does it compare to ZFS in terms of resilience? After all, it's in the damn name.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Informative)
The "resilience" is from copy on write (CoW), which is used in Volume Shadow Copy and Microsoft SQL server. It is also able to cloud data across multiple volumes on different machines from what I read. Since both CoW and ZFS's copy work a lot like RAID0 (as far as I can tell), I'd expect them to be similar in this respect, however ZFS also does checksum tests and NTFS doesn't BUT I don't know if ReFS will or not.
That said, ZFS is a WAY better file system, and I'll give you a few reasons why:
No max path length restriction (TFA says there still be one for ReFS)
Variable Block sizes and Sparse Files
Allocate on Flush [wikipedia.org]
Block Journaling (aka Journaling File System) as opposed to Metadata only Journaling (NTFS and probably ReFS) which is less reliable
Logical Volume Management [wikipedia.org]
and that is just naming a few off the top of my head with some links to what they mean if it seemed like it may not be obvious (the others are fairly commonly talked about IMO - if you don't know them, they should be easy to search for)
I'm fairly certain NTFS still doesn't support user metadata, either, and I believe zfs does (most modern FS's do), so I doubt ReFS will (what I mean by this is I can tag a piece of data as, say "photos" and then when I search for photos, those are found first - this is a feature like what was planned for WinFS's and what Apple's Spotlight does).
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:4, Insightful)
So they are starting to catch up with the ext3 filesystem.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So they are starting to catch up with the ext3 filesystem.
I thought it sounded pretty much like a dumbed down version of AFS... from the early 90s. The problem is I never use any of that extra stuff because I have no use for it. I don't remember if I can do sparse with AFS because I don't care about sparse. At home I do the openafs thing for linux, mac, and windoze and everything is in AFS, so I don't really care what windows uses natively, its just kind of a bootloader to get to my real files over afs.
I hope there is a way to disable file level compression, be
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Informative)
You need to RTFA. The grandparent was a spoof. ReFS doesn't support compression. Or short-names. etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Supposedly they also support pools across multiple devices of different sizes that can be reallocated dynamically.
In that regard, it is more like zfs and btrfs, and on par with the best filesystems out there.
I'm curious what performance is like.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Funny)
After my initial tests, I must say that ReFS is incredible advangement. ReFS supports named streams, object IDs, short names, compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, sparse, hard-links, extended attributes and quotas. It is basically all the best filesystems compiled into one.
Not only is this good for Windows system, but overall network architecture.
and of course will be an open standard(Sarcasm Alert)
Re: (Score:3)
That thought crossed my mind, there are legitimate reasons for ditching NTFS, but I can't help but wonder if this has anything to do with Win 8 being the first release in a long time where they weren't under DoJ supervision. Also, at this point, NTFS support on other OSes is pretty good. Seems like a really convenient way of making it inconvenient to interoperate or multiboot.
Re: (Score:3)
Nothing about leaving anyone in the dust.
Consider:
1) In the past, when has MS EVER dropped an existing technology and rewritten it for a new version of something, rather than adapted/shoehorned it into the desired role?
- NT? Nope - that was a ground-up write, but for a new project that didn't really align with existing software. It did end up replacing DOS for the basis of Windows, but that was just shoehorning one underlayer in place of another that itself was shoehorned into running things.
-NTFS? Nope, ju
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Informative)
That's very interesting given the article says
There are some NTFS features for which Microsoft plans to drop support with ReFS, specifically named streams, object IDs, short names, compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, sparse, hard-links, extended attributes, and quotas, Verma blogged. That said, one of Microsoftâ(TM)s goals with ReFS is to âoemaintain a high degree of compatibility with a subset of NTFS features that are widely adopted while deprecating others that provide limited value at the cost of system complexity and footprint,â Verma said.
Re: (Score:2)
Some of those features are actually useful:
Compression comes into handy for dealing with directories full of log files.
File level encryption is useful for volumes where BitLocker can't be used.
Sparse files are extremely useful.
As for quotas, unless they have another layer for warning/enforcement, how will places keep users from filling up their home directories?
I'm hoping ReFS is up to ZFS with needed features, such as deduplication, encryption, an analog of RAID-Z, the filesystem working with the LVM layer
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:4, Informative)
Some of those features are actually useful
Yes, and they're DROPPING those features.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:4, Interesting)
Great. What does that mean for users?
Amateurs: Nothing at all.
"Know-a-bit's": Almost nothing.
Professional users: Nothing we couldn't do before.
State-of-the-art, top-dog, storage-gods: Nothing very special or new at all.
Now, if you'd said that it finally supported WinFS-style file tagging and searching, then you'd have ticked lots of boxes for all manner of users. As it is, it's a "slightly better filesystem than before" and hardly newsworthy (out of all your "features", I only spot one that you can't already do with Windows alone and that would ever be exposed to someone NOT using bit-level access to the drive - file level encryption).
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Funny)
End users: We still live in a world of 8.3 filenames. Sorry. Till the last PC is burned in a bonfire...
You know what would be a funny graph of google data? How many are still serving up .htm files instead of .html files vs year.
20 years from now my grandkids are going to have to answer on Jeopardy why computer filenames are still in a 8.3 filename format.
Re: (Score:3)
No we will live in 8.3 file names as long as FAT is the defacto standard for all portable drives.
My only wish is for MSFT to support a filesystem they didnt create. That way a third paty FS can get used for portable media
Re: (Score:3)
No we will live in 8.3 file names as long as FAT is the defacto standard for all portable drives.
Why? FAT LFN support has been commonplace for well over a decade. Where have you recently been restricted to 8.3 filenames?
Re: (Score:3)
He wishes he switched to QuickBooks years ago. Make sure you get the Accountants version if you need Fixed Asset management.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Informative)
Apple's OSX uses file extension exclusively to determine what sort of file it is. They used to use creator codes, but those have been removed and now it relies entirely on file extension.
No, creator and type metadata take precedent over file extension. The big change in OSX is that the API and developer tools promote file extensions over metadata. There was a big push to ensure that OSX would work correctly even if it was using a file system that didn't support metadata.
Try this, go to the Finder and select "Get Info" on a data file. Now go to where it says "Open With" and select a different application. Unlike Windows where this selection is forgotten after it opens, on OSX the choice is remembered. The Finder sets the creator metadata of the data file to ensure that it is always opened with the selected application.
So metadata is still used in OSX, but extensions now also play a prominent role.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Informative)
Windows also allows you to change the Open With association (and has for many years) but it's stored in the registry as a global configuration for the file type. It's not specific to any given file.
Just thought I'd clear that up.
Re: (Score:3)
[D0NK3Y T1T5]!!! - Avatar.the.Last.Airbender.XviD.avi
Re: (Score:3)
My Preview of Cold Fusion Reactors (Score:4, Funny)
After my initial tests
Wait, what? From the article:
Officially named ReFS — for Resilient File System — the new file system will be made available via a staged “evolution,” according to a January 16 post on the “Building Windows 8 blog.
So you're saying something that was just announced and will be made available via a staged evolution has already been tested by you? Impressive!
It is basically all the best filesystems compiled into one.
Thanks for summing it up for me there, bud. I didn't realize it was the greatest goddamn filesystem I could imagine, why didn't you just say "Imagine what your dream filesystem will be able to do, this is it." I wonder though, will it have the homicide capacity of ReiserFS?
This reminds me of my initial tests of cold fusion. I must say that cold fusion is incredible dvangement. Cold fusion supports providing us with unlimited power from a glass of water, it prints money, it gives the user eternal life, it allows the user to travel faster than the speed of life and -- when activated -- attractive women jump out of the core reactor demanding money shot after money shot.
Re: (Score:3)
It gets better:
TFA:
some NTFS features for which Microsoft plans to drop support with ReFS, specifically named streams, object IDs, short names, compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, sparse, hard-links, extended attributes, and quotas, Verma blogged.
His post:
I must say that ReFS is incredible advangement. ReFS supports named streams, object IDs, short names, compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, sparse, hard-links, extended attributes and quotas
He's either overpaid as MS shill, or underpaid as dark PR style "obviously dumb MS shill" troll.
Re: (Score:3)
Or... he's being sarcastic, and you are a fool. That list was basically a complete rundown of NTFS's newest or least-known features (some, like compression and EFS, have existed for over a decade). It was quite obvious, even without reading TFA, that some if not all of them were going to be cut from the new version.
Mind you, if you want me to use a filesystem that doesn't support transactions, it better have some other damn good perk. Compare what happens if a big file operation (say, copying a large direct
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
After my initial tests, I must say that ReFS is incredible advangement. ReFS supports named streams, object IDs, short names, compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, sparse, hard-links, extended attributes and quotas. It is basically all the best filesystems compiled into one.
We have a cautionary fairy tale here about the cat and the dog baking a cake. Since they don't know how to bake a tasty cake, they decide to put every tasty ingredient they know into the mix. So then naturally include flour, milk, butter, eggs, whipped cream, bones, mice, sausages, candies, chocolate, pork cracklings, sauce...and so on, except for bread, which neither cats nor dogs seem to like. Well, I guess you can guess what they got in the end.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everything that Microsoft makes is bad. Just because someone says a particular product or technology is good doesn't make them a troll. In fact, as much as Windows drives me up a wall, I am a really big fan of Microsoft Security Essentials.
Assuming that everything Microsoft is terrible conversely is trolling.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree on the 'paid' part. The posts are too incompetent. It seems more like a "I'll make MS look bad by posting this crap" type thing.
Re: (Score:3)
While those you listed do a lot of pro Microsoft posts, I have to wonder about this one. He listed all of the features that they actually removed from NTFS and said that they still support them, either he screwed up or he's not a Microsoft shill.
Re: (Score:3)
He was in too much hurry to get that first post and hadn't much chance to get pro-MS today.
His three other first-post-same-timestamp-as-article-but-no-subscription-account today succeed in looking down on Google, but don't have much to say about MS, except for "IE9 is now fully standards compliant and Google breaks the web [slashdot.org]".
Re: (Score:3)
I work for a Wniversity, and they pay my salary. If I were paid by MS, I probably wouldn't have moved a bunch of Windows servers over to Linux (network filesystems + Windows = PAIN IN THE ASS).
As for them, how the hell do I know where their salary comes from? It seems to me you are trying to say everyone who disagrees with your dogma is one person, in an attempt to discredit them, without any evidence.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:4, Informative)
I work for a Wniversity
Ha, dude, you're busted! You were trying to say "university" and it came out "Windows"! ;-)
Re: (Score:3)
Here is a list of known MS shill accounts on slashdot:
Give me a break...I doubt MS even knows Slashdot exists.
Re:Hi, GreatBunzinni--a message from the accused (Score:4, Interesting)
You are confused. The only time I've bothered pointing out that the bonch [slashdot.org] account and Overly Critical Guy [slashdot.org] accounts are sockpuppet accounts was in this comment [slashdot.org], after I read this comment [slashdot.org] blowing your cover. And since then I've also stumbled on this comment [slashdot.org], which provides further evidence. Are you also going to claim that I am chrb?
And rest assure. I have some time to spare about now which I will waste replying to bonch/overly critical guy posts with messages pointing out that they are sockpuppet accounts. You can thank your personal attacks for this one.
Re: (Score:3)
Meanwhile I've also stumbled on this post [slashdot.org], which raises the suspicion that the bonch [slashdot.org] and SharkLazer [slashdot.org] accounts are also controlled by the same people. This post [slashdot.org] also points out that suspicion. Could it be that you also made the same mistake with messages posted from the SharkLazer account as the ones made from the Overly Critical Guy one?
These sockpuppet accounts follow the same posting pattern: one account starts a discussion, either karma-whoring or astroturfing, and the other accounts then quickly interv
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, well, when I go to work on trashy Windows 8 computers and I can't read the filesystem with my tools, people are simply going to lose their data. I don't care. I'm sick of working on Microsoft crap anyway. (Time for a change of life)
I have specialized boot disks that don't exactly use a Windows 8 kernel. Every goddamned version of Windows is getting worse for recovery and repair options. I am almost embarrassed to say how many times I have had to "clean install" Vista and Windows 7 because I couldn't f
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Informative)
TechGuy's a troll who's gotten the most first-posts in the last week AND every one has either promoted an MS product or bashed a Google one. One even said "Use Silverlight instead of Dreamweaver for making a website".
Re: (Score:3)
Then again, no one does that, bonch.
Re: (Score:3)
For a headsup, the bonch [slashdot.org] account and Overly Critical Guy [slashdot.org] accounts are sockpuppets operated by the same organization. See this post [slashdot.org] and a previous post I've made here [slashdot.org] for evidence that these user accounts are used to push the same script, sometimes even copy/paste versions of it.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:4, Informative)
Does anyone knows what happens between research and productivization at MS?
Management.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you got it right.
look at the time stamps:
@10:23AM
@10:23AM
on the other hand, how do you know when projects like Wine or ReactOS are getting good?
when MS starts introducing incompatibilities.
Re: (Score:3)
Is this the contemporary manifestation of that old "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run" canard ?
Re: (Score:3)
Apple with Steve was a monster.
Apple booted Steve Apple played dead.
Apple brought Steve back for the win.
Steve died, Apple will soon.
Re: (Score:3)
iPhone - All the parts were available, they had all been integrated into devices before, Apple gets the credit because it was the first one that a) worked b) was easy to use c) had an app store with useful apps in it on the day of launch ...
This is the same reason the iPod worked - the device itself was nothing special, not even the interface - but iTunes meant you had an easy way of getting stuff on it ...
Apple are good at complete systems, they are not as good at components that work nicely with others .
Re: (Score:3)
You remember myself some 6 or 7 years ago. Back then I coded mostly in C++ and Lua, and I wholeheartedly hated Python. I have a friend (way more intelligent than I am) that told me something like "Python is the best language ever", but I couldn't understand how he liked it.
Then I was forced to make some extensions to Blender in Python. What started as a frustrating (because of my prejudice) experience quickly (+- one week) turned to amazement about how easy it was to code the things I wanted to do. And afte
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe, just maybe, his post is actually a joke, wherein he copy/pasted the list of features being dropped (see paragraph 5 in TFA), claiming they were the advancements.
But no, conspiracy theories are much more fun.
Re:My preview of ReFS (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, he's also very, very fast to be able a) read the article, b) concoct a funny answer, c) post it the same minute the article was published.
All that without subscriber account, note.
He's really agile with the keyboard, this guy, he does it fourth time already today.
Full of sound and fury, signifying an idiot (Score:2, Informative)
Note the collaboration between this, and numerous other "contributors" between extremely verbose first posts submitted within the same minute
It's called "being a subscriber". Since you don't even know that we can all just assume you've not ever been one and are just a leech.
As for "being paid", I don't know that many people are paying to have humorous articles posted to Slashdot.
You did realize his post was humor, right? It was not to subtle for you to comprehend, right?
Oh.
Re:Full of sound and fury, signifying an idiot (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, you see that asterisk [slashdot.org] right next to his nickname that means "a subscriber account"... Oh, wait, there's none.
Starts with 'R' (Score:5, Funny)
This is a bad idea.
Now we can count on some guy named 'Hans Resilient" to be tried and found guilty of murder.
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't say that I've ever used any of the NTFS features they're planning to drop.
I do wish Windows had a sane soft-link system like *nix does; I've yet to run into an application that automatically dereferences a .lnk when opening it. You have to futz around with opening the link manually, reading it's redirect, and then opening THAT instead. Very crude and ugly.
But more to the point, I didn't see much about what might be NEW with this file system, only what's OLD and being discarded.
Mind you, some basic feature cleanup never hurt anyone. But if that's the case, why not NTFS2 instead of a marketing buzzword?
Re: (Score:2)
Typo: I meant "API", not "application".
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
I do wish Windows had a sane soft-link system like *nix does; I've yet to run into an application that automatically dereferences a .lnk when opening it. You have to futz around with opening the link manually, reading it's redirect, and then opening THAT instead. Very crude and ugly.
Man, if only [microsoft.com].
(OK, it's not quite sane considering you have to distinguish between links to files and links to directories at creation time. I'm not sure what happens if you flip it behind its back.)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, I think that under the default setup you have to be admin to create links.
That'll be to create hard links to directories, which is a Bad Idea everywhere. Symbolic links to directories are fine though, and can be created by ordinary users (with the right tool; Windows doesn't come with anything like 'ln' by default).
Re: (Score:3)
mklink can create symlinks (which were introduced with NT6.0's update to NTFS)/hardlink/dir junctions and is available out of the box since Vista/Server 2008. There's "fsutil hardlink" command on earlier systems, but to create directory junctions you had to install Resource Kit's linkd or Russinovich's Junction.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you referring to shortcut files? That's something entirely different.
Re: (Score:3)
It usually does. The bug only surfaces when you're part of an enterprise active directory network that has group policies & domain admins, and it only crops up with specific combinations of group policy settings that look innocent in and of themselves, but have disabling the creation of symlinks by local admin members (but nobody else) as an unintended side effect. To make them work, you have to set some other policy that looks like it's imposing a restriction upon local admins, but actually has the opp
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
There's a blog post [msdn.com] linked from the article.
There's all kinds of promising stuff, like data corruption resilience and dropped/extended limits.
Much more interesting read than the linked ZDNet article.
Re: (Score:3)
I built 3 windows 7 computers over the winter break.
A fresh install of Win 7 x64 takes
- 12 GB Windows
- 8 GB pagefile (deleted & turned off)
- 8 GB hibernate (deleted & turned off)
Not sure where you are pulling 40 GB out of your ass from ? =)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
But more to the point, I didn't see much about what might be NEW with this file system, only what's OLD and being discarded.
Let's see: 32K file name and path limits (instad of 255), on-line recovery from corruption (no more "Check Disk" or offline recovery-rebuild), faster performance, built in recovery of data on failed disks (via Storage Spaces), hot-adding-more-storage to volumes, better control of allocation and localization on the drive, attribute checksums (and auto detection and recovery from "bitrot")....
Did you RTFA at all?
32K long file names? That'll be useful... (Score:3)
... to no one. Apart from maybe malware writers who'll be able to put an entire virus in the filename. Whether they'll be able to hide it or even use it is another matter but I wouldn't put it past Windows to have a nice exploit available.
Re:32K long file names? That'll be useful... (Score:5, Informative)
... to not one.
The real world disagrees with your statement: we have TFS projects with long directory and file names, such that we cannot map the entire TFS source in a single folder. Even naming it e.g. "c:\x" (or "d:\", putting it on a separate drive), the paths and files still exceed MAX_PATH (which is 260, [microsoft.com] not 255).
So, this feature will be useful to our shop.
It's also useful for "rolling backups"; I administer family machines, and one has been upgraded from a desktop, to a laptop, to another laptop. The first upgrade, I copied all the files to "c:\e" (old machine was an eMachine). That laptop died, we used a restoration company that started with a "G" to get the data back (now we backup via WHS), and I saved that in "c:\g" (so there's a "c:\g\e" with the desktop's files). The third machine (second laptop) has "c:\h" (which also contains "c:\h\g\e"). Other times I've saved backups with more descriptive names, like "Backup of the Dell Inspiron 5150, 2011-11-11", and sometimes those backups fit inside each other like expressed above.
So, I have examples from both home and work where having longer-than-MAX_PATH file/path names would be useful.
Re: (Score:3)
NTFS supports softlinks, (junction points) its just none of the user land stuff that ships on the Windows platform knows how to deal with it.
Explorer for instance can't create them, and indicate that something is a link, and can't correctly total up disk usage for a tree if you have used them in that tree.
Re: (Score:3)
I buy an 128gb SSD to speed things up, I have 200gb worth of Steam games.
Without symlinks: I am sad.
With symlinks: I copy rarely played games to my regular hard drive, symlink to them from the steam directory (on the ssd). Everything works transparently.
Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll agree.
As ugly as NTFS is, the one thing I've liked about it is that it's the only FS used by Windows and Windows Servers for a dozen years.
With Linux, on the other hand, I've had to deal with ext2, ResierFS, ext3, ext4, and those are only the popular ones! There are a ton of other specialized filesystems for other features, such as encryption or use on flash memory!
Re:Then what file system should we all use? (Score:4, Informative)
How much data did you have on a single large zdev that it required that amount of time? I tend to group mine into groups of 8 disks with raidz2. When I have to rebuild, it does so at the write speed of the new disk (100+MB/sec). If you have a relatively small array and it still takes 45 days to rebuild then you have a hardware issue, or you are using an siig card, which has horrible performance under all the unix/linux variants I have used.
I use zfs on linux at home with an 8 disk raidz2 array for network storage. On a core 2 duo / 2.5ghz using an lsi 1068 based card, I achieve a rebuild speed of 80+MB per second, a scrub speed of 150+MB/sec. At work, I use it to store spatial data / 3d video using zfs on linux. Multiple 8 disk raidz2 devices connected via lsi 9200 card. I achieve a rebuild speed of 80+MB per second, a scrub speed of 250+MB/sec.
If you use junk cards, you get junk performance.
Dropped features (Score:3)
Dropping support for compressed folders and hard links? I use those features all the time. Especially when you troubleshoot a server with a subfolder containing 12GB of log files, and have no direction or policy about what to do with those old log files, you could safely enable compression on the folder and they magically take up less space.
Re: (Score:2)
compressed folders + truecrypt + robocopy also makes a wonderful hassle-free backup system.
You gotta be kidding me?! (Score:5, Funny)
Today, NTFS is the most widely used, advanced, and feature rich file system in broad use.
If this is true...it's a very sad world we live in...
Then I guess we live in a sad world (Score:4, Insightful)
When it comes down to it, NTFS is a pretty good file system. If you look in to things you find that the feature list for BTRFS reads an awful like a feature set of current NTFS.
None of that is to say that NTFS couldn't stand improvement, and indeed it is being improved, but I've yet to see the amazing widely used file system that is so much better than it. Ext3 is functional, but leaves much to be desired.
Re: (Score:3)
We can come up with tons of bad things to say about NTFS. It basically boils down to three things in the end, though:
1) Windows doesn't support NTFS features very well
2) NTFS is overly complex and unpredictable as a disk format
3) NTFS is outdated and doesn't support modern features
Point 1 is evidenced by how basic tools (explorer, file dialogs, etc.) don't support many of the features. You have to use command line tools for things like links. That's not a big deal on UNIX systems, but Windows isn't ho
As the best boss I ever had used to ask: (Score:3)
1) which problem does this solve ?
2) if the answer at #1) is not "null", then how monkeyproof is it ?
Warning (Score:5, Funny)
If you're married to "Hans Resilient", you'll want to start running now.
More things to patent.... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like they're due for a refresh so they can get some new patents on their filesystem to make sure all the device makers need to continue to pay them money.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like they're due for a refresh so they can get some new patents on their filesystem to make sure all the device makers need to continue to pay them money.
That's what exFAT was for. This is probably to make it harder for non-Windows folks again since they can finally read/write to NTFS (stable since late 2.6.2x series for Linux; don't know about the others).
Re: (Score:2)
No, but if you want to use long filenames on say, your android phone, and being able to connect that to a windows machine MS gets a licence fee. That applies to pretty much all devices. That's a FAT32 patent though, and I'm wondering (somewhat seriously) if they don't have anything worthwhile for enforcing on NTFS so that's part of why they're looking for something new.
NTFS up to EXT4 speeds? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not a filesystem guru. I stick to programming in the application space mostly. But I have noticed a large time discrepency compiling a large project using EXT4 vs NTFS. EXT4 being multiple times faster then doing the same compile on an NTFS. My question now is, will ReFS bring those times up to similar values?
PS. Also looking at the dropped support for short names, i think quite a few server batch files will be broken.
Re: (Score:3)
I've heard anecdotal evidence (so take with a grain of salt) that doing stuff on ReFS is much faster.
Keep in mind this initial release is for servers only, and NOT for boot volumes, so it'll be a while (half a decade or more) before it trickles down into most desktops/laptops.
Re: (Score:3)
So this is for servers, not for boot devices
So what is it for, for storage most people are using network storage, where the filesystem is very often not Windows Native?
Microsoft plans to deprecate lesser-used features (Score:5, Insightful)
When NTFS was introduced... (Score:5, Interesting)
.
I have to wonder how much of the pre-release ReFS hype will prove to be true in the coming years.
Re: (Score:3)
So, watch them use partition table FS identifier 82 (Linux FS - Ext2/3/4) instead...for the same reason. However, that has typically only hurt Microsoft as everyone else figures out how to be detect the differents FS's on the actual partition, especially the Linux folks.
Re: (Score:3)
The reason for that should be pretty obvious - NTFS was supposed to replace HPFS in what was then still called OS/2 NT.
NTFS development started along with NT development in the late '80s. Back when IBM and Microsoft were still BFFs and *years* before they would have any thoughts about "compatibility".
Compatibility Grief is What I See Coming (Score:4, Insightful)
All the file utilities for both Mac and PC and how you handle these different systems including forward/backward compatibility, Parallels, VMWare, Backup software, hard drives and tape devices will all go through teeth nashing debugs as we try to get everything to work with a new file system.
That may be OK when you are an IT professional.
For someone who "just wants it to work" there is likely to be lots of surprises ahead.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:NTFS is resilient! (Score:5, Insightful)
Respect?? That's absolutely terrible.
A modern journalling filesystem should not experience any corruption after a crash, because journal recovery is supposed to keep data structures consistent.
Not only that, but NO filesystem, journalling or not, should cause a kernel crash if it is corrupted.
Microsoft has done one thing well, and that is to lower the expectations of their users so far, that what should have been a few second journal recovery turned into a big outage and manual recovery of a massively corrupted filesystem, and that gains them "Absolute respect".
Re:NTFS is resilient! (Score:4, Interesting)
Journalling most certainly does not rely on luck and timing! Under heavy I/O, journalling can guarantee filesystem data integrity (modulo coding bugs).
Back in the real world, journalling is generally only used for metadata, and many hard drives lie when you ask them to flush their cache to disk. So even if the drive doesn't lie and your journal works, the actual file data -- you know, the stuff you actually care about -- may well be trashed.
with patented algorithms nodoubt (Score:3)
Windows doesn't need a new disk based filesystem. (Score:3, Interesting)
It needs some way to securely mount a remote filesystem. SMB and non-anonymous FTP shouldn't be used over the internet ever. It wouldn't be too bad except that FTP is incredibly difficult to reliably tunnel due to it opening connections in both directions on random ports. I would be a happy person if Windows added native support for sftp.
Re:linux driver (Score:5, Funny)
There's already no Linux driver for it... so does that mean you're going to switch? And if someone makes a Linux driver will you switch back to not using it?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe he means something like with SecureBoot, he will never be able to run linux again, so not having a filesystem driver won't matter, or something like that, so he's not switching?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:linux driver (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Got it in one. MacOSForge had a working driver and filesystem version for ZFS on Snow Leopard. However, on the day before Snow Leopard shipped, it was yanked off the download repository, because Apple couldn't come to licensing terms with (then) Sun.
They had ZFS completely implemented on Mac OS X 10.6, and had to abort due to licensing. The package is still kicking around out there if you go looking, but I doubt anyone is maintaining it anymore. Too bad, too.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're reversing cause and effect. A volume isn't boot because it's C:\, it's assigned C:\ because it's boot. Behind the scenes the drive letters don't exist. It's an abstraction, in a similar way that sda, sdb, sdc are.