Windows ReFS versions

Windows ReFS versions.en.md

Version number is reported by fsutil fsinfo refsinfo, available on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016.

ReFS 1.1

• Version of formatted by Windows Server 2012.
• Version 1.1 is used already in Windows Server 8 Beta. I have never seen version 1.0.
• Can use and store alternate data streams, when mount on 8.1/2012 R2 or later.

ReFS 1.2

• Version of formatted by Windows 8.1, Windows 10 v1507 to v1607, Windows Server 2012 R2, and when specified ReFSv1 on Windows Server 2016 or later.
• Cannot use alternate data streams, when mount on 2012.

ReFS 7.2

• Version that can be formatted with Windows 10 Build 9780

ReFS 9.2

• Version that can be formatted with Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9841 to 9860 and Windows Server 2016 TP1 (It's not default). Could not mount in 10 9879 or 2016 TP2 and later.

ReFS 11.2

• Version that can be formatted with Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9879 (It's not default). Could not mount in 9926 and later.

ReFS 12.2

• Version that can be formatted with Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9926 (It's not default). Could not mount in 10041 and later.

ReFS 22.2

• Version that can be formatted with Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10041 to 10049 (It's not default). Could not mount in 10061 and later.

ReFS 2.0

• Version of formatted by Windows Server 2016 TP2/TP3.
• Version that can be formatted with between Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10061 or later and earlier than 10130 (It's not default). Could not mount in Windows 10 Insider Preview build 10130 and later, or Windows Server 2016 TP4 and later.

ReFS v2 Overview
http://www.snia.org/sites/default/files/SDC15_presentations/file_sys/JRTipton_ReFS_v2.pdf
http://www.snia.org/events/storage-developer/presentations15#file_sys

ReFS 3.0

• Version of formatted by Windows Server 2016 TP4/TP5.
• Upgrade to 3.1 when writable mount from Windows Server 2016 RTM.

ReFS 3.1

• Version of formatted by Windows Server 2016.

ReFS 3.2

• Version of formatted by Windows 10 v1703.
• Version that can be formatted with Windows 10 Insider Preview 15002 or later (It's not default at 15002) and Windows Server Insider Preview build 16237.
  • It became the default between after than 15002 and 15019 or earlier.

ReFS 3.3

• Version of formatted by Windows 10 Enterprise v1709 and Windows Server version 1709.
• Version of formatted by Windows 10 Enterprise Insider Preview build 16257 and Windows Server Insider Preview build 16257.
  • Creation ReFS volume ability was removed from Home and Pro at build 16226 and later.

ReFS 3.4

• Version of formatted by Windows 10 Enterprise v1803, Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server version 1803.
• Version of formatted by Windows 10 Enterprise Insider Preview build 17083 and Windows Server Insider Preview build 17079.

ReFS 3.5

• Version of formatted by Windows 10 Enterprise Insider Preview build 19536 and Windows Server Insider Preview build 19551.
• Added hardlink support if fresh formatted volume.
  • Can't use hardlink if upgraded from previous version.
• Upgrade to 3.6 when writable mount from Windows 10 Insider Preview build 21292.

ReFS 3.6

• Version of formatted by Windows 10 Enterprise Insider Preview build 21292 and Windows Server Insider Preview build 20282.
• Upgrade to 3.7 when writable mount from Windows 10 Insider Preview build 21313.

ReFS 3.7

• Version of formatted by Windows 11 Enterprise v21H2 and Windows Server 2022.
• Version of formatted by Windows 10 Enterprise Insider Preview build 21313 and Windows Server Insider Preview build 20303.

ReFS 3.9

• Version of formatted by Windows 11 Enterprise v22H2.
• Version of formatted by Windows 11 Enterprise Insider Preview build 22598 and Windows Server Insider Preview build 25099.
• Added post process compression with LZ4 & ZSTD, transparent decompression.

ReFS 3.10

• Version formatted by Windows 11 Enterprise Insider build 25324 through 25997 and builds 26010

ReFS 3.12

• Version formatted by Windows 11 Enterprise Insider build 26002. Build 26010 reverts back to 3.10

Mountability

ReFS\Windows	2012	8.1/2012 R2	10 v1507	2016	10 v1703	10 v1709	10 v1803/2019	11 v21H2/2022	11 v22H2	Canary Channel
1.1	Yes	Yes1	Yes1	Yes1	Yes1	Yes1	Yes1	Yes1	Yes1
1.2	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
3.1	No	No	No	Yes	Yes2	Yes3	Yes4	Yes56	Yes76
3.2			No	No	Yes	Yes3	Yes4	Yes56	Yes76
3.3				No	No	Yes	Yes4	Yes56	Yes76
3.4						No	Yes	Yes56	Yes76
3.7							No	Yes	Yes8
3.9								No	Yes
3.10								No	No	Yes9
3.12								No	No	Yes

License: CC BY

Footnotes

1. "Volume "?:" was mounted in an older version of Windows. Some features may be lost." was recorded to event log when writable mount. I don't know what's been lost. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Upgrade to 3.2 when writable mount. ↩

3. Upgrade to 3.3 when writable mount. ↩ ↩²

4. Upgrade to 3.4 when writable mount. ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Upgrade to 3.7 when writable mount. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. Can't use hardlink. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

7. Upgrade to 3.9 when writable mount. Can't mount read-only. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. Upgrade to 3.9 when writable mount. ↩

9. Builds 25324 to 25997 ↩

Yes, it is mindbloggling and I catched that some time ago. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-server-insiders/b25951-refs-3-10-volume-became-raw-refsutil-not-compatible-with/m-p/3947990/highlight/true#M3139
So do understand your crashes, I would kindly ask you to open a SR with Microsoft Support you have certainly access to support.
As soon you have the Ticket number come back to me and I will help you to manage to bring it to the ReFS people. They signalled.
If you can repro the crash on connection issue in a preview version of Windows 11, we might not require a SR.
I had this issue once but only for older versions of ReFS.
try to find out the ReFS version of the attached disk. It should survive a powershell > fsutil fsinfo refsinfo dl: command, hopefully

Hi @Karl-WE, I have never reported an issue with MS before and the methods you describe are all Latin to me.
The problem with my HDD and Images is that the moment I attach them to the system, the system crashes.
A while back I cloned an older ReFS version from an image to a partition (my software does that) and the moment Windows accessed the partition it blue-screen-crashed and would simply not boot anymore. I fixed it by booting the system with an older W10 boot DVD and by overwriting the partition with rubbish (using my software again).
I suppose I could boot the system again using that W10 DVD.

Ok Gonzo, let us proceed offline. I got your DM!

I booted in W10. I'm starting to feel confident W11 crashes because of ReFS 2.0. Turns out the HDD has 4 ReFS partitions. versions 1.2, 2.0 and 3.4. W10 mounted 1.2 and 3.4 correctly but failed to see 2.0. I think W11 takes it a step further and crashes on ReFS v 2.0.

@CyberGonzo it is possible to try to analyze the DUMP file as ReFS 3.x (refs.sys) and ReFS 1-2 (refsv1.sys) are two different drivers,

It says both Could not read faulting driver name and
MODULE_NAME: ReFS IMAGE_NAME: ReFS.SYS FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: AV_R_INVALID_ReFS!CreateUnicodeStringDirectorKey
The latter suggesting the ReFS 3.x driver then

Just FYI and to complete my earlier findings. I cloned a small ReFS v 3.2 image to a HDD and W11 crashed immediately after mounting the disk. So it's not v 2.0 as I thought. It's also v 3.x. (PS. I used the publicly available image refs-v3_2.E01 found here: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/9d7p6mbhpz/1