How to Enable or Disable to Format with ReFS File System in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
Resilient File System (ReFS) is a new local file system supported by Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. It maximizes data availability, despite errors that would historically cause data loss or downtime. Data integrity ensures that business critical data is protected from errors and available when needed. Its architecture is designed to provide scalability and performance in an era of constantly growing data set sizes and dynamic workloads.
While Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 natively supports ReFS drives, you are not able to format a drive with ReFS by default unless manually enabled.
The key features of ReFS are:
- Integrity: ReFS stores data so that it is protected from many of the common errors that can cause data loss. File system metadata is always protected. Optionally, user data can be protected on a per-volume, per-directory, or per-file basis. If corruption occurs, ReFS can detect and, when configured with Storage Spaces, automatically correct the corruption. In the event of a system error, ReFS is designed to recover from that error rapidly, with no loss of user data.
- Availability: ReFS is designed to prioritize the availability of data. With ReFS, if corruption occurs, and it cannot be repaired automatically, the online salvage process is localized to the area of corruption, requiring no volume down-time. In short, if corruption occurs, ReFS will stay online.
- Scalability: ReFS is designed for the data set sizes of today and the data set sizes of tomorrow; it’s optimized for high scalability.
- App Compatibility: To maximize AppCompat, ReFS supports a subset of NTFS features plus Win32 APIs that are widely adopted.
- Proactive Error Identification: The integrity capabilities of ReFS are leveraged by a data integrity scanner (a “scrubber”) that periodically scans the volume, attempts to identify latent corruption, and then proactively triggers a repair of that corrupt data.
Resilient File System (ReFS)
Creation ability to format with ReFS will only be available in the following editions: Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Pro for Workstations.
Creation ability will be removed from all other editions. All other editions will have Read and Write ability.
For more details about ReFS, see:
- Resilient File System Overview
- Resilient file system (Windows)
- Windows Server 2012: Does ReFS replace NTFS? When should I use it? - TechNet Blogs
- ReFS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Building the next generation file system for Windows: ReFS - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
- ReFS: Log-Structured Performance And I/O Behavior Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog
This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable the ability to format drives with ReFS (Resilient File System) in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to enable or disable formatting with ReFS.
You will not be able to format the Windows drive with ReFS.
Some people have reported having issues with Windows after enabling ReFS. The main issue being reported is anything using VSS will not work until ReFS is disabled again. This includes DISM, file history, system restore, Windows backup, and system images.
It is recommended to disable formatting with ReFS after you have formatted the drive with ReFS to avoid the issues above and still be able to use the ReFS drive.
To be extra safe, you should also create a restore point before enabling ReFS to be safe. If you have an issue afterwards, you will then be able to do a system restore at boot and select the restore point to undo.
EXAMPLE: Format Drive with ReFS
Here's How:
The downloadable .reg files below will add and modify the DWORD values in the registry keys below.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MiniNT
AllowRefsFormatOverNonmirrorVolume DWORD
(delete MiniNT key) = disable
1 = enable
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
RefsDisableLastAccessUpdate DWORD
0 = Enable
1 = Disable
1 Do step 2 (enable) or step 3 (disable) below for what you would like to do.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.
Enable_formatting_with_ReFS.reg
Download
This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.
Disable_formatting_with_ReFS.reg
Download
4 Save the .reg file to your desktop.
5 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.
6 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.
7 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.
That's it,
Shawn
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