How much 2016 to use ReFS?

[mvalpreda]

Current environment is 5x standalone 2012 R2 Hyper-V servers. Veeam is a 2012 R2 VM. Currently backing up to CIFS shares on a Synology. Some large servers in there doing full backups every month and they can take 30 hours. Looking to speed that up with synthetic fulls.

Looking to move to the glory that is ReFS, curious how much needs to be 2016 to take advantage. Just the Veeam server? Or do the hosts need to be 2016 as well? I'm going to get a new repository and connect it iSCSI to the Veeam server.

[mkaec]

You might want to take a look at this thread to see what you'd be getting into with the "glory" of ReFS.

[mvalpreda]

That's great, but not the question I asked. Already running a bunch of customers with full 2016 for 6+ months with no ReFS issues.

If I upgrade my Veeam server to 2016 and connect a repository via ReFS, will I be able to use Fast Clone? Or do the hosts have to be 2016 as well as right now they are 2012 R2.

[nefes]

You can take a look at this section of heplcenter.
When using CIFS repository backed by ReFS, you can go with 2 options:
1. Manual selection of gateway server - only that gateway server should be 2016.
2. Automatic selection of gateway server - depending on chain type, you will need to have Mount server/VBR on 2016, or also Hyper-V servers.