new 24TB Repo : NTFS or ReFS ?

[nd39475]

I'm setting up a new repo in 9.5u3.
(Due to the Array's limitations, i plan to use windows to "span" two 12TB volumes)

Now that time has passed and most if not all ReFS issues are resolved (that i know of), does anyone have recommendation on formatting as NTFS vs ReFS? At this time, i don't "plan" for de-dupe but i don't know if that will stand in the future. Is there significant reason to choose ReFS going forward into 2019? This is a fully updated 2012R2.

If workarounds are still required, then i will choose NTFS. Please inform.

Thank you kindly

[NightBird]

On 2012R2 refs is not 3.1 version so no fast block cloning feature as on Windows 2016
Stay with ntfs

[nd39475]

ty

[jamerson]

Today we bought a Synology with 12 Bay and want to format the partiton with REFS,
is the REFS working on the Synology ?

[nmdange]

That will only work if the partition is attached to a Windows Server 2016 host via iSCSI.

[Gostev]

In theory, Veeam supports block cloning with SMB3 shares as well. However, of course this requires that the actual file system behind SMB3 share supports block cloning, and currently there are not too many such file systems

[Gunni75]

From different customer situations, i dont recommended ReFS at this time.
Also not with Windows Server 2016.
Furthermore you need with 24TB ReFS Volume more than 48GB of free RAM --> in your situation min. 64GB RAM are recommended !

[ChriFue]

Since VEEAM 9.5 U3a i create all my primary backup target repos with ReFS/64k on Windows Server 2016.
Running on small devices like NAS with iSCSI mapping to windows os, and big repos with serverhardware and 100TB+ with local storage or SAN attached storage.

Never had a problem. I am heavily using forever incremental backup chains with fastclone. Also scale-out repos!
Windows 10 Pro for Workstation also works great in small environments (instead of "fat" server license).

Major things i always check:

- Enough server ram
- ReFS format with 64k
- Approved ReFS Windows Driver

Just my personal experience!

[yasuda]

In theory, Veeam supports block cloning with SMB3 shares as well. However, of course this requires that the actual file system behind SMB3 share supports block cloning, and currently there are not too many such file systems

I've done this in practice. Veeam Agent backups to a file share on Server 2016, where the filesystem is ReFS. Huge improvement in merge times. Prior to this, Veeam Agent did not work well for field people's laptops, because they would leave the office before the merge completed. Now they only need to be connected a few minutes.

Switching them to VBR Repos on the same file server yielded even faster backups.