Microsoft released Dev Drive at the Build 2023 developer conference, a custom storage volume geared for developers. Built on top of Microsoft’s proprietary ReFS (Resilient File System), Dev Drive is optimized for heavy I/O operations and has improved performance and security capabilities.
Dev Drive includes file-system optimizations and Microsoft claims up to 30% improvement in build times as well as improved security using the new performance mode in Microsoft Defender for Antivirus. In Microsoft Defender performance mode, real-time protection runs asynchronously, balancing security and performance. The balance is reached by delaying security scans until after the file operation has been completed instead of running security scans synchronously while the file operation is being executed. This performance mode is more secure than a folder or process exclusion that disables security scans altogether.
