ReFS vs ZFS

[alex75871]

I have always used ZFS for server file storage. I am in the process of building a new server and wanted to explore the possibility of Microsoft's ReFS because a lot of the server-applications I use are better supported on Windows. Has anyone used it? Any feedback? Should I avoid it? Can I setup a ReFS RAID volume when installing Windows Server? Ideally I would install the OS to 2x Intel DC SSD and create my mass storage array separately once Windows is installed.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Ive used it , it works fine. Different limations and interfaces. Basically don't use parity for storage spaces.

 

ALso have you looked vms? That would let you use zfs(or refs) and run windows on top. Look at proxmox as a hypervisor.

[alex75871]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Ive used it , it works fine. Different limations and interfaces. Basically don't use parity for storage spaces.

 

ALso have you looked vms? That would let you use zfs(or refs) and run windows on top. Look at proxmox as a hypervisor.

Does ReFS sit underneath storage spaces? What do you mean by don't use parity? Can I not have a RAID environment using ReFS?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, alex75871 said:

Does ReFS sit underneath storage spaces? What do you mean by don't use parity? Can I not have a RAID environment using ReFS?

storage spaces manages raid and volumes, refs is the filesystem on top. They work together for things like error correction.

 

Parity has aful writes, like 60mB/s max. If your gonna use it have a fast tier thats pretty big.

 

You can have refs on a normal raid array, but many of its big features like error correction are disabled as it wants direct access to drives like with zfs.

[alex75871]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

storage spaces manages raid and volumes, refs is the filesystem on top. They work together for things like error correction.

 

Parity has aful writes, like 60mB/s max. If your gonna use it have a fast tier thats pretty big.

 

You can have refs on a normal raid array, but many of its big features like error correction are disabled as it wants direct access to drives like with zfs.

Am I able to configure a storage spaces RAID 1 volumn with ReFS when setting up Windows Server?

 

Here's my desired configuration:

2x Intel DC3500 120 GB SSD - MIRROR -  OS and applications

4x WD Red 10 TB HDD - RAID 5 parity equivalent - Mass storage

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, alex75871 said:

Am I able to configure a storage spaces RAID 1 volumn with ReFS when setting up Windows Server?

 

Here's my desired configuration:

2x Intel DC3500 120 GB SSD - MIRROR -  OS and applications

4x WD Red 10 TB HDD - RAID 5 parity equivalent - Mass storage

You setup storage spaces once installed. You cant boot from storage spaces.

 

So do the s3500 raid in hardware and the hdds with storage spaces.

 

Don't use parity, its crap, use mirrors.

 

Really, Id just use proxmox and run vms of windows servers. That way you can use zfs, which will work better here.

[alex75871]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

You setup storage spaces once installed. You cant boot from storage spaces.

 

So do the s3500 raid in hardware and the hdds with storage spaces.

 

Don't use parity, its crap, use mirrors.

 

Really, Id just use proxmox and run vms of windows servers. That way you can use zfs, which will work better here.

I will definitely look into proxmox. Thank you for your help

[Mikensan]

Just to expand on using Proxmox or any other hypervisor you want... ideally you have an HBA or similar card and pass it directly through to a virtual machine. This virtual machine would run FreeNAS + ZFS and through either iSCSI or NFS present storage to your Proxmox installation. Now you would install your windows VM on this storage backed locally by FreeNAS and get very good throughput.

 

One of the biggest advantages, most I think would agree, is now you have a hypervisor you can run more VMs through, instead of trying to use Jails / VMs on FreeNAS. For a 1gb network, you definitely do not need much RAM for FreeNAS.

[keepwalkn]

A couple of people here mentioned not to use Storage Spaces Parity; yes you are correct if you use it without any SSD or NVMe cache, but if you do it works incredibly well.

 

I have 6 x HGST 10TB drives in a Parity volume with 2 x 250GB Samsung 850 Pros mirrored for the cache. 

 

From the internal SATA M.2 to the new ReFS volume I was getting sustained transfer speeds of just under 400mb/s.

 

Also, ReFS dedupe support in Server 2019 works a treat!

[leadeater]

On 2/5/2019 at 2:45 AM, Mikensan said:

Just to expand on using Proxmox or any other hypervisor you want... ideally you have an HBA or similar card and pass it directly through to a virtual machine. This virtual machine would run FreeNAS + ZFS and through either iSCSI or NFS present storage to your Proxmox installation.

I thought Proxmox supported ZFS (and Ceph) as part of the hypervisor OS so a storage VM isn't required.

[Mikensan]

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

I thought Proxmox supported ZFS (and Ceph) as part of the hypervisor OS so a storage VM isn't required.

That is true, OpenZFS should be supported across linux - just nice to have a pretty GUI to manage it lol.