Microsoft quietly working on ReFS "Dev Drive" VHD volumes in Windows 11

Back in January, Microsoft's apparent intention of bringing more robust ReFS or Resilient File System support to Windows 11 became evident when users were able to install the OS on an ReFS volume. However, it only worked when a hidden toggle was flipped.

Now it looks like more ReFS-based features could soon be heading to Windows 11 later in the year. Twitter user and Windows enthusiast PhantomOcean3 managed to dig up some details regarding a new ReFS-based Dev Drive or devvol (presumably Developer Volume) inside the Dev build 25309 (which in itself is feature packed).

Another Twitter user and famed leakster Albacore revealed more details regarding this upcoming feature which is labelled "Dev Drive" and can be found inside the Privacy & Security section of the Settings app. This will seemingly allow developers to create virtual hard disks (VHD).

The images below show the steps to create a Dev Drive which starts off with the intuitive "Create Dev Drive" option (minimum 50GB), followed by location of the drive, a creating VHD window, and finally the option to format the newly created VHD Dev Drive or developer volume. ReFS based virtual drives do make sense as Microsoft states that this file system is optimized to accelerate VMs.

Speaking of VHD, Microsoft is also working on adding options to create VHD/VHDx virtual volumes, also in the Dev channel, that can be up to almost 2TB in capacity.

Source: PhantomOcean3 (Twitter) via Albacore (Twitter)

Microsoft quietly working on ReFS "Dev Drive" VHD volumes in Windows 11