General NAS overview

[frowertr]

Windows Software RAID makes me shudder...

 

[grimpr]

Same here, storage spaces with refs is free, comes with the os and its a piece of cake to setup, but i cant trust it yet, on paper it's on the same league like zfs/btrfs but with far more fewer users running it i'm holding out more, i just ask to find out whats the pulse of the pro storage crowd on it.

 

[frowertr]

If I had time, I'd fire it up in a VM to play with it. But it seems that it still isn't being taken seriously in the Enterprise field at all.

 

[Anteaus]

We need to be careful not to use pro opinions to color amateur solutions. For home use, the Windows solution is perfectly viable assuming you have backups.

 

[grimpr]

from https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/b8...next-generation-file-system-for-windows-refs/

"We have tested ReFS using a sophisticated and vast set of tens of thousands of tests that have been developed over two decades for NTFS. These tests simulate and exceed the requirements of the deployments we expect in terms of stress on the system, failures such as power loss, scalability, and performance. Therefore, ReFS is ready to be deployment-tested in a managed environment. Being the first version of a major file system, we do suggest just a bit of caution. We do not characterize ReFS in Windows 8 as a “beta” feature. It will be a production-ready release when Windows 8 comes out of beta, with the caveat that nothing is more important than the reliability of data. So, unlike any other aspect of a system, this is one where a conservative approach to initial deployment and testing is mandatory.

With this in mind, we will implement ReFS in a staged evolution of the feature: first as a storage system for Windows Server, then as storage for clients, and then ultimately as a boot volume. This is the same approach we have used with new file systems in the past."

 

[Anteaus]

from https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/b8...next-generation-file-system-for-windows-refs/

"We have tested ReFS using a sophisticated and vast set of tens of thousands of tests that have been developed over two decades for NTFS. These tests simulate and exceed the requirements of the deployments we expect in terms of stress on the system, failures such as power loss, scalability, and performance. Therefore, ReFS is ready to be deployment-tested in a managed environment. Being the first version of a major file system, we do suggest just a bit of caution. We do not characterize ReFS in Windows 8 as a “beta” feature. It will be a production-ready release when Windows 8 comes out of beta, with the caveat that nothing is more important than the reliability of data. So, unlike any other aspect of a system, this is one where a conservative approach to initial deployment and testing is mandatory.

With this in mind, we will implement ReFS in a staged evolution of the feature: first as a storage system for Windows Server, then as storage for clients, and then ultimately as a boot volume. This is the same approach we have used with new file systems in the past."

That is an old article. Storage Spaces has gone through some updates since it was first implemented with Windows 8.

http://betanews.com/2014/01/15/windows-storage-spaces-and-refs-is-it-time-to-ditch-raid-for-good/

https://stebet.net/microsoft-finally-adds-rebalancing-to-storage-spaces/

I'm definitely not advocating for its use in a professional environment, but it is fine for home use.

 

[Michael]

As I said in my article that started this thread, raid discussions are almost as bad as debating religion.

🙂

Michael