ReFS File System

Bonjour_Rodney · 30 Oct 2012 at 19:22

I have just purchased my self a copy of Windows 8 and all is working great so far. However, I would like to try out the new ReFS file system on my two internal data drives I have. One is used for all my libraries and the other for my Lightroom catalogues and RAW files.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to format the data drives using any other file system other than NTFS. Am I missing something obvious?

:confused:

Didzi · 30 Oct 2012 at 19:45

I believe ReFS is for Windows Server 2013 and not Windows 8

theheyes · 30 Oct 2012 at 19:59

Yep, Server only for now.

NathanE · 30 Oct 2012 at 20:14

It's called Storage Spaces in Win8 Client...

theheyes · 30 Oct 2012 at 21:10

NathanE said:
It's called Storage Spaces in Win8 Client...

On Windows client they're still NTFS.

Bonjour_Rodney · 30 Oct 2012 at 22:23

Many thanks for your replies.

Nanobot · 4 Nov 2012 at 11:27

I have a feeling an element of ReFS is in use on Windows 8.

I have a data drive in a caddy that I use between Windows 8 and 7 and whenever I return in to Windows 7, it always needs a CHKDSK and the past few times it keeps finding 'issues' with file attributes and index entries.

According to MSDN blog:

Q) What semantics or features of NTFS are no longer supported on ReFS?

"The NTFS features we have chosen to not support in ReFS are: named streams, object IDs, short names, compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, sparse, hard-links, extended attributes, and quotas."

It's definitely a metadata issue as the disk is brand new and doesn't have any faults or errors.

theheyes · 4 Nov 2012 at 12:34

They did substantially update chkdsk as well if I recall correctly. Also, even a brand new disk isn't perfect with today's densities.