Microsoft has announced Windows 10 Pro for Workstations that will target corporate and true power users that use top of the line hardware. According to Microsoft’s blog post, the operating system will bring along features such as persistent memory, resilient file system (ReFS), faster file sharing as well as expanded hardware support.
“Windows 10 Pro for Workstations is a high-end edition of Windows 10 Pro, comes with unique support for server grade PC hardware and is designed to meet demanding needs of mission critical and compute intensive workloads,” states the blog post.
Based on the same blog post, the aforementioned features will differentiate Windows 10 Pro for Workstations from the standard version of Windows 10 Pro as follows:
- ReFS (Resilient file system): ReFS provides cloud-grade resiliency for data on fault-tolerant storage spaces and manages very large volumes with ease. ReFS is designed to be resilient to data corruption, optimized for handling large data volumes, auto-correcting and more. It protects your data with integrity streams on your mirrored storage spaces. Using its integrity streams, ReFS detects when data becomes corrupt on one of the mirrored drives and uses a healthy copy of your data on the other drive to correct and protect your precious data.
- Persistent memory: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations provides the most demanding apps and data with the performance they require with non-volatile memory modules (NVDIMM-N) hardware. NVDIMM-N enables you to read and write your files with the fastest speed possible, the speed of the computer’s main memory. Because NVDIMM-N is non-volatile memory, your files will still be there, even when you switch your workstation off.
- Faster file sharing: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations includes a feature called SMB Direct, which supports the use of network adapters that have Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) capability. Network adapters that have RDMA can function at full speed with very low latency, while using very little CPU. For applications that access large datasets on remote SMB file shares, this feature enables:
- Increased throughput: Leverages the full throughput of high speed networks where the network adapters coordinate the transfer of large amounts of data at line speed.
- Low latency: Provides extremely fast responses to network requests, and, as a result, makes remote file storage feel as if it is directly attached storage.
- Low CPU utilization: Uses fewer CPU cycles when transferring data over the network, which leaves more power available to other applications running on the system.
- Expanded hardware support: One of the top pain points expressed by our Windows Insiders was the limits on taking advantage of the raw power of their machine. Hence, we are expanding hardware support in Windows 10 Pro for Workstations. Users will now be able to run Windows 10 Pro for Workstations on devices with high performance configurations including server grade Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron processors, with up to 4 CPUs (today limited to 2 CPUs) and add massive memory up to 6TB (today limited to 2TB).
It seems that Microsoft is on a mission to expand its flagship OS portfolio. The approach is meant to meet various needs for different users and audiences that range from mobile, IoT and all the way to PC. Ideally, Microsoft has exploited the concept of OneCore to create different versions of the OS where a single core of code is used across all versions of Windows 10.
There are now 10 versions of Windows 10: Home, Enterprise, Education, IoT, Mobile, Mobile Enterprise, Pro, Pro for Business, S and lastly, Pro for Workstations.
Windows 10 Pro for Workstations will be available to consumers when the Fall Creators Update goes live.
