Windows Server | IT Blog By Joni Mattila

DFSR shares exists to replicate data between fileservers to share the same files across units. This is great until the whole thing bugs and Fileshare 1, Fileshare 2 and Fileshare 3 has all different versions of the same file when they need to be in sync. After this happens it will be long and painful process to get them back to sync and involves many manual steps.

I highly recommend not using DFSR shares, investigate other solutions! Run away as fast as you can!

Bad things about DFSR shares that I have encountered so far:

• Cannot replicate in use files (The DFS Replication service has been repeatedly prevented from replicating a file due to consistent sharing violations encountered on the file. The service failed to stage a file for replication due to a sharing violation.)
• You need to manually adjust staging quota for each share depending on file size, if you fail this you will get out of sync files (The DFS Replication service detected that the staging space usage is above the staging quota for the replicated folder at local path C:\DFS. The service might fail to replicate some large files and the replicated folder might get out of sync. The service will attempt to clean up staging space automatically.)
• When creating DFS share remember to check default file filter and remove them if you are doing .bak or .tmp files, fail this and you do not sync files.
• Health check does not reveal any out of sync files, returns all green even though there are many files out of sync. Had backlog 0 when there are clearly out of sync files between file servers.
• No warning system other than event log to detect there are problems with DFSR share, end user gets no warnings.
• Fileshare might be disconnected for long time with only 1 error (The DFS Replication service stopped replication on the folder with the following local path: C:\DFS. This server has been disconnected from other partners for X days, which is longer than the time allowed by the MaxOfflineTimeInDays parameter (60). DFS Replication considers the data in this folder to be stale, and this server will not replicate the folder until this error is corrected.)

Some helpful links to get things fixed:

Determining staging quota filesize https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askds/2011/07/13/how-to-determine-the-minimum-staging-area-dfsr-needs-for-a-replicated-folder/

Manually fixing very large staging quota https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askds/2008/10/06/manually-clearing-the-conflictanddeleted-folder-in-dfsr/

Implementing content freshness https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askds/2009/11/18/implementing-content-freshness-protection-in-dfsr/

Common causes and fixes to dfsr https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askds/2007/10/05/top-10-common-causes-of-slow-replication-with-dfsr/