Building the next generation file system for Windows: ReFS

Quote:
•Maintain 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.
•Verify and auto-correct data. Data can get corrupted due to a number of reasons and therefore must be verified and, when possible, corrected automatically. Metadata must not be written in place to avoid the possibility of "torn writes," which we will talk about in more detail below.
•Optimize for extreme scale. Use scalable structures for everything. Don't assume that disk-checking algorithms, in particular, can scale to the size of the entire file system.
•Never take the file system offline. Assume that in the event of corruptions, it is advantageous to isolate the fault while allowing access to the rest of the volume. This is done while salvaging the maximum amount of data possible, all done live.
•Provide a full end-to-end resiliency architecture when used in conjunction with the Storage Spaces feature, which was co-designed and built in conjunction with ReFS.
The key features of ReFS are as follows (note that some of these features are provided in conjunction with Storage Spaces).:
•Metadata integrity with checksums
•Integrity streams providing optional user data integrity
•Allocate on write transactional model for robust disk updates (also known as copy on write)
•Large volume, file and directory sizes
•Storage pooling and virtualization makes file system creation and management easy
•Data striping for performance (bandwidth can be managed) and redundancy for fault tolerance
•Disk scrubbing for protection against latent disk errors
•Resiliency to corruptions with "salvage" for maximum volume availability in all cases
•Shared storage pools across machines for additional failure tolerance and load balancing

Source: Windows 8 Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/16/building-the-next-generation-file-system-for-windows-refs.aspx
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The key goals of ReFS are:We wanted to continue our dialog about data storage by talking about the next generation file system being introduced in Windows 8. Today, NTFS is the most widely used, advanced, and feature rich file system in broad use. But when you're reimagining Windows, as we are for Windows 8, we don't rest on past successes, and so with Windows 8 we are also introducing a newly engineered file system. ReFS, (which stands for Resilient File System), is built on the foundations of NTFS, so it maintains crucial compatibility while at the same time it has been architected and engineered for a new generation of storage technologies and scenarios. In Windows 8, ReFS will be introduced only as part of Windows Server 8, which is the same approach we have used for each and every file system introduction. Of course at the application level, ReFS stored data will be accessible from clients just as NTFS data would be. As you read this, let's not forget that NTFS is by far the industry's leading technology for file systems on PCs.
This detailed architectural post was authored by Surendra Verma, a development manager on our Storage and File System team, though, as with every feature, a lot of folks contributed. We have also used the FAQ approach again in this post.
--Steven
PS: Don't forget to track us on @buildwindows8 where we were providing some updates from CES.
•Maintain 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.
•Verify and auto-correct data. Data can get corrupted due to a number of reasons and therefore must be verified and, when possible, corrected automatically. Metadata must not be written in place to avoid the possibility of "torn writes," which we will talk about in more detail below.
•Optimize for extreme scale. Use scalable structures for everything. Don't assume that disk-checking algorithms, in particular, can scale to the size of the entire file system.
•Never take the file system offline. Assume that in the event of corruptions, it is advantageous to isolate the fault while allowing access to the rest of the volume. This is done while salvaging the maximum amount of data possible, all done live.
•Provide a full end-to-end resiliency architecture when used in conjunction with the Storage Spaces feature, which was co-designed and built in conjunction with ReFS.
The key features of ReFS are as follows (note that some of these features are provided in conjunction with Storage Spaces).:
•Metadata integrity with checksums
•Integrity streams providing optional user data integrity
•Allocate on write transactional model for robust disk updates (also known as copy on write)
•Large volume, file and directory sizes
•Storage pooling and virtualization makes file system creation and management easy
•Data striping for performance (bandwidth can be managed) and redundancy for fault tolerance
•Disk scrubbing for protection against latent disk errors
•Resiliency to corruptions with "salvage" for maximum volume availability in all cases
•Shared storage pools across machines for additional failure tolerance and load balancing
Source: Windows 8 Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/16/building-the-next-generation-file-system-for-windows-refs.aspx