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| Windows 11 supports the new file system better than the current NTFS |
Microsoft has hinted that Windows 11's default file system could soon be replaced by a new file system designed for advanced servers.
For more than three decades, Windows devices have used the NTFS file system for storage, including internal drives as well as external drives such as USB drives.
However, the new Windows 11 build number 25276 that the American software giant is releasing mentions support for the Flexible File System, or ReFS for short.
The ReFS file system was first introduced with the Windows Server 2012 server operating system to support storage of large amounts of data.
Notes for new versions of Windows indicate that the current file system (NTFS) is limited to 256 terabytes, which is plenty for the average user, but in some cases businesses and data centers may need more capacity. ReFS supports up to 35 petabytes, which is 35,000 terabytes.
More flexible than NTFS, particularly in its ability to detect and repair memory corruption while the server remains online, ReFS is also designed with scalability in mind.
“[ReFS] is designed to support very large data sets of up to millions of terabytes without affecting performance, and it is also expected to achieve greater scale than previous file systems,” Microsoft said in its post.
However, there are some drawbacks, especially when used in traditional personal computers (ReFS), because the system does not support file compression, encryption, and removable media.