ReFS and FileIntegrity

Question

I've been planning to run ReFS within our infrastructure for some time now, but just seem to get the chance to now. So before I begin digging into configuring the test environment, so while I go grab DiskMon, ProcMon and Iometer,

I was wondering if there already is some reports that would provide some insight, my main concerns would be:

1. Would it be possible to use it as a CSV?
2. How would it perform in an Read majority environment?
3. Are there any known best configurations for its replication between sites?
4. Are there any drawbacks/benefits of activating FileIntegrity?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

1. Yes.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612868(v=ws.11).aspx

To use CSV, your storage and disks must meet the following requirements: File system format. In Windows Server 2012 R2, a disk or storage space for a CSV volume must be a basic disk that is partitioned with NTFS or ReFS.

2. Like NTFS or better.

3. Windows doesn't replicate @ file system level. These are either files with DFS-R or blocks with Storage Replica.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb540025(v=vs.85).aspx

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-replica/storage-replica-overview

4. Yes, ReFS turns itself into log-structured file systems and whole I/O patterns changes dramatically.

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/log-structured-file-systems-microsoft-refs-v2-investigation-part-1

People are having lots of issues with ReFS running in log-structured mode. Here's a good example of that.

https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-replication-f2/refs-4k-horror-story-t40629.html

I'd suggest to sandbox your brand new ReFS environment for quite some time before putting everything into production!