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For a backup target in a small company I‘m setting up a 4*8TB Dell Poweredge R230 (supports hardware RAID 0/1/5) I only want to go with Windows Server since that‘s where I have most know-how. I want to use ReFS because silent data corruption is a concern. I intend to use Raid 5 to keep 75% of space usable.

What I wonder now is whether or not I should use windowsstorage spaces underneath the ReFS and if I fo do, whether I should forgo the hardware RAID?

In another thread (https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-replication-f2/refs-on-hardware-or-software-raid-t57439.html) I read:

I've seen tests where Storage Spaces (not direct, 1 server only) was faster all around than traditional RAID10.
I guess I will have to do my own testing.
However, if you use ReFS without Storage Spaces you will lose self-healing functionality

Not sure what ‚self-healing‘ he exactly means but it sounds like i‘d need storage spaces for the resiliency part of ReFS?

Then if so, what kind of storage space makes sense in this setup and should there still be a hardware RAID underneath?

matthias_buehlmann
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1 Answers1

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ReFS by itself cannot repair corruptions, it is a feature of Storage Spaces. But ReFS will detect them when on files with data integrity stream enabled when reading the corrupted block, or when ReFS data scrubber encounters the corrupted block during its patrol reads. ReFS is a "new" file system and its stability of ReFS for long-term backup repository is questionable.

Most of backup solution have built-in backup integrity check, so I would better rely on NTFS on H/W Raid.

The ReFS performance in compare to NTFS is covered in following research:

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/refs-performance

batistuta09
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    Thank you, this is useful! I'm using daily windows File History for backup plus monthly Windows-z style full system backups. If ReFS requires Storage Spaces and my hardware RAID creates a single logical disk out of my four physical ones, what kind of Storage Space (what settings) should I create on this single logical disk in order for ReFS to work optimally? I don't worry too much about performance – matthias_buehlmann Dec 11 '19 at 10:23
  • Or rather than creating a hardware RAID 5, will ReFS's resiliency work better if I instead setup no hardware raid, and instead create the Storage Spaces volume with 4 columns and parity? – matthias_buehlmann Dec 11 '19 at 10:29
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    Storage Spaces don't support any H/W RAID (only in aka HBA mode). So, technically you can do StSp on Raid volume, but it makes no sense. – batistuta09 Dec 11 '19 at 13:55
  • my question was not about Storage Spaces on H/W RAID but about ReFS on H/W RAID vs ReFS on Storage Spaces – matthias_buehlmann Dec 11 '19 at 13:58
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    your first question was regarding it :) – batistuta09 Dec 11 '19 at 14:00
  • You are right, my bad! so the question hat remains is whether ReFS on H/W RAID makes any sense at all – matthias_buehlmann Dec 11 '19 at 14:01
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    You don’t get any ReFS self-healing with H/W Raid. Regarding ReFS resiliency on Storage Spaces: nobody tells you, how ReFS will work after a some period of time. If silent data corruption is a concern, take a look at SMB backup repository on top of ZFS – batistuta09 Dec 11 '19 at 14:04