- [Instructor] Once a hard drive has been installed
initialized, and partitions or volumes created.
The next decision that you have to make,
is regarding the file system that you're going to apply
to that volume, now NTFS has been
the preferred file system for years.
Because it allowed for more specific security settings
not just on folders but on individual files
and it allows you to manage storage space
by configuring quotas, on top of that,
it allows you to create larger volumes
and larger files within those volumes.
But these comparisons were against the File Allocation Table
the traditional FAT file system
and given these comparisons the NTFS environment
was the obvious choice.
FAT followed by VFAT to support long file names
and FAT32 to support somewhat larger volumes
hasn't really changed that much over the years.
The primary advantage of FAT is that
this file system can be read by pretty much
any other platform or application.
But that isn't always necessary
and it isn't always a benefit.
During normal operation I want
the Windows Server operating system to read the file system
and serve up the data to other apps
and systems on my terms.
I don't always want other platforms browsing
the local storage, when we look at capacity,
the FAT file system had some pretty restrictive limits.
The maximum volume size being 32 GB in size,
the maximum file being four GB in size.
Several DVD images are already larger than that.
So if you're storing install media,
that 4GB limitation can already be too much for you.
But you do have the compatibility that we talked about,
NTFS in Windows Server 2019 supports volumes
that are up to 256 TB in size,
and individual files that are just as large.
Although that one is currently just theoretical
it does remain the most robust file system
in terms of security options and other features.
But this big long list of features,
may not always be what you're looking for.
The resilient file system, or ReFS
was introduced in Windows Server 2012.
On its face it would appear that ReFS has all of the same
capabilities as NTFS, in fact in terms of these metrics
it hardly seems worth introducing a new file system at all.
But among the benefits of the original version
of ReFS was that it didn't carry all of the overhead
of NTFS, overhead that will affect performance.
What it does offer you is the ability
to detect file corruption
and the ability to restore to a small degree,
and remain online while dealing with corrupted data.
Some server applications, say for example Exchange
has its own storage management features.
It doesn't need all of the quotas,
all of the features that NTFS has offered.
Things like keeping the volume available
even through small issues is going to be more important
and leaving room for Exchange to manage
its own database makes ReFS
with its lower performance overhead a preferred environment.
With ReFS you gave up the features you didn't need
and created an optimal environment for these applications
that manage their own data.
In later versions of ReFS, you began to pick up
many of the same management tools
that you have in NTFS, but you still have
the performance benefits.
Some are suggesting that ReFS will overtake NTFS completely
but I still think they each have their place.
The full compliment of features
in NTFS still make it a good solution
for the Windows Boot Volume and for the average file server.
I'm showing here a Windows server that has two volumes
that were created at exactly the same size.
Capacity of 29.2 GB, the one on the left
was formatted using NTFS, the one on the right
was formatted using ReFS,
and you can see some of the differences from right here.
You can see that in NTFS we have a quota tab
that doesn't exist in the Resilient File System.
However when you look at the amount
of used space these are empty volumes,
I haven't copied any content onto these.
NTFS is using 73 almost 74 MB, to store the information
that it needs to keep the volume alive,
even as an empty volume.
ReFS is using over a Gig for those same purposes.
The capabilities of ReFS will take up
a little bit of drive space to maintain
but they're worth it in the performance benefits later on.
Also look down at the bottom, in NTFS there's a check box
to compress all files on the volume
and this may or may not be a feature that you want to see.
There are some concerns
and there are performance hits over it.
But it's an available option nonetheless,
an option that doesn't exist in ReFS.
As we go forward we're going to take a look
at one of the features that ReFS has picked up
that allows you to manage space without the risks
and performance hits of compression.