Microsoft has the details released of the filesystem that Windows 8 was developed. ReFS stands for Resilient File System and new file system will only for now for the server version of Windows 8 can be used.
The ReFS owes its name to the extent to which it is resistant to hard – and software errors; during a power outage, for example, would data on a server with ReFS not must perish. Despite the new name is ReFS for the sake of compatibility still partly based on the well-known ntfs, the current Windows products is used. ReFS would ntfs is not going to be replaced in consumer versions of Windows; only Windows 8 Server would the new file system to be used.
In a blog post does any of the developers of ReFS explain what the main features and design criteria of the file system. In addition to the backwards compatibility with ntfs the file system suited for very large storage volumes and the need to removing the corrupt data will automatically be repaired, where the file system is continuously available. Also would have volumes on different drives and systems could be shared to the availability and to optimize the load balance.
The data is written by a newly developed storage engine in so-called B+ trees. Not only the data itself but also metadata like directory structures in the tables in this B+ trees saved. Changes in files are always in a different location than the original is written, what is data corruption in the event of a write failure should occur.
The renewed structure of the file system supports files that are a maximum of ten trillion bytes, while a volume even a tredeciljoen, or 10^78 bytes in size. A volume may be ten trillion directories contain, each equal files can contain. A storage pool is up to 4PB great, but there is no limit to the number of storage pools. Windows Server 8 can, moreover, not a ReFS drive to start; it is purely as a recording medium.