--- title: Test-Driving Windows 11 Dev Drive for .NET | daily.dev description: A detailed first-hand account of setting up and benchmarking Windows 11's Dev Drive feature, which uses the ReFS file system and Microsoft Defender's... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/test-driving-windows-11-dev-drive-for-net-rgzlfyn7m twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Test-Driving Windows 11 Dev Drive for .NET | daily.dev og:description: A detailed first-hand account of setting up and benchmarking Windows 11's Dev Drive feature, which uses the ReFS file system and Microsoft Defender's... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/test-driving-windows-11-dev-drive-for-net-rgzlfyn7m og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/RGZlFyn7M.png og:image:alt: Test-Driving Windows 11 Dev Drive for .NET og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Test-Driving Windows 11 Dev Drive for .NET **[Maarten Balliauw](https://daily.dev/sources/maartenballiauw)** · 12 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A detailed first-hand account of setting up and benchmarking Windows 11's Dev Drive feature, which uses the ReFS file system and Microsoft Defender's performance mode to speed up developer workloads. The author migrated source code, NuGet/Maven/Gradle/npm package caches, and even a JetBrains Rider installation to a Dev Drive, measuring restore times, build times, and IDE startup/indexing times against NTFS. Results showed consistently faster NuGet restores and builds, modest JVM build improvements, and only marginal IDE performance gains once compared against NTFS with Defender real-time protection disabled. Includes PowerShell scripts for relocating package manager caches and notes on Copy-on-Write support via the Microsoft.Build.CopyOnWrite NuGet package, plus caveats like OneDrive incompatibility with ReFS. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I move NuGet, Maven, Gradle, and npm package caches to a Windows 11 Dev Drive? Create a packages folder on the Dev Drive, move the existing cache folders there, and set environment variables to point each package manager at the new location: npm_config_cache for npm, NUGET_PACKAGES for NuGet, MAVEN_OPTS with -Dmaven.repo.local for Maven, and GRADLE_USER_HOME for Gradle. A PowerShell script can automate moving .nuget, .m2, .gradle, and npm-cache folders and setting these variables as user environment variables. _daily.dev readers tuning build speed can track these Dev Drive package cache configs as they roll out upgrades._ ### How much faster is dotnet restore on a Windows 11 Dev Drive compared to NTFS? On a four-project .NET solution with 41 dependencies, dotnet restore times roughly halved on a Dev Drive versus NTFS, dropping from 846ms-1.39sec per project on NTFS to 434ms-740ms on the Dev Drive. On a separate 22-project solution, clean and rebuild times averaged 32.41 seconds on NTFS versus 19.8 seconds on the Dev Drive, confirming a consistent though unscientific performance gain. _developers deciding whether to migrate build pipelines can weigh these restore-time numbers before switching to a dev drive._ ### Does Windows 11 Dev Drive actually make JetBrains Rider faster than running it on NTFS? Only marginally. Starting Rider took about 6.5 seconds on both NTFS and Dev Drive, and opening a 38-project solution with package restore and re-indexing took about 58 seconds on Dev Drive versus 1 minute 7 seconds on NTFS with real-time Defender protection enabled. However, NTFS with Microsoft Defender real-time protection disabled performed nearly identically to the Dev Drive, at about 59 seconds, suggesting most of the gain comes from Defender's performance mode rather than ReFS itself. _anyone comparing IDE setup options can check these numbers before deciding where to install their toolchain._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Making Windows a developer platform, again](https://daily.dev/posts/making-windows-a-developer-platform-again-hh9y1edqr) · InfoWorld · 14 upvotes · 3 comments - [Microsoft desperately needs to steal this one Linux feature to fix Windows 11, and it's not the package manager](https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-desperately-needs-to-steal-this-one-linux-feature-to-fix-windows-11-and-it-s-not-the-pack-txqtceg25) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [New NTFS Driver Sees Hardening & Fixes, Windows Native Symlinks With Linux 7.2](https://daily.dev/posts/new-ntfs-driver-sees-hardening-fixes-windows-native-symlinks-with-linux-7-2-c8jw6a9d7) · Phoronix · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#windows](https://daily.dev/tags/windows), [#.net](https://daily.dev/tags/.net), [#nuget](https://daily.dev/tags/nuget) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/test-driving-windows-11-dev-drive-for-net-rgzlfyn7m) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Test-Driving Windows 11 Dev Drive for .NET","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/test-driving-windows-11-dev-drive-for-net-rgzlfyn7m","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/test-driving-windows-11-dev-drive-for-net-rgzlfyn7m"},"datePublished":"2026-10-04T13:04:27.655Z","dateModified":"2026-10-04T13:07:59.526Z","description":"A detailed first-hand account of setting up and benchmarking Windows 11's Dev Drive feature, which uses the ReFS file system and Microsoft Defender's...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/183b5f7c9f0aeda436508d0379dcdf17?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/183b5f7c9f0aeda436508d0379dcdf17?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Maarten Balliauw","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Maarten Balliauw","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--rOTg3VYO--/f_auto,q_auto/v1791119043/logos/maartenballiauw?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/maartenballiauw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/test-driving-windows-11-dev-drive-for-net-rgzlfyn7m","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"windows,.net,nuget","timeRequired":"PT12M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Maarten Balliauw","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/maartenballiauw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Test-Driving Windows 11 Dev Drive for .NET"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/test-driving-windows-11-dev-drive-for-net-rgzlfyn7m#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I move NuGet, Maven, Gradle, and npm package caches to a Windows 11 Dev Drive?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Create a packages folder on the Dev Drive, move the existing cache folders there, and set environment variables to point each package manager at the new location: npm_config_cache for npm, NUGET_PACKAGES for NuGet, MAVEN_OPTS with -Dmaven.repo.local for Maven, and GRADLE_USER_HOME for Gradle. 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