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?
Best Answer
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