Windows Server 2012 Adds New File System

Windows Server 2012 includes a new, additional file system, the Resilient File System (ReFS). Likely of interest to customers with high data storage capacity and availability needs, ReFS enables Windows to access far larger storage volumes and can store larger files, with less downtime due to disk corruption, than were previously possible. While many existing applications work as is with ReFS, some will require rewriting. Although Microsoft has tested this new file system extensively, some caution is advised until it is proven in production.

NTFS Hitting Capacity, Availability Limits

The NT File System (NTFS), the primary file system of Windows Server, arrived with Windows NT 3.1 in 1993. NTFS was designed to improve capacity, performance, security, and reliability over the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system used by MS-DOS and the High Performance File System (HPFS) created by Microsoft during its collaboration on OS/2 and included in Windows NT through Windows NT 3.51.

Although it has been enhanced significantly over the years, NTFS was designed in an era when computers running Windows had very different data storage needs. In general, disks and files were much smaller, and the volume of data and number of files per system was far lower. NTFS was also designed to be comprehensive, providing many features that remain unused by the majority of applications but that may be used by some.