- SYSVOL (System Volume) replication happens with two mechanisms (depending on the windows server version)
- FRS (File Replication Service)
- DFSR (Distributed File System Replication)
FRS
- the legacy replication engine for SYSVOL used in windows 2000 and 2004 domain functional levels and was still the default in 2008 domains
- had some problems like
- inefficient
- replicated entire files even for small changes and took up alot of bandwidth
- difficult to troubleshoot
- didnt have any compression or scheduling improvements
- basically a very basic copier between DCs
- the domain will use FRS by default if the DFL is at 2008 or lower
- FRS is fully deprecated starting windows server 2016
DFSR
- the successor to FRS. the modern replication engine for domains.
- was introduced in windows server 2003 R2 but was only made available as a viable domain wide replication engine starting in windows server 2008
- advantages over FRS:
- Remote Differential Compression (RDC)
- basically transfers the changed parts of a file rather than the entire file
- efficient
- better conflict resolution and self healing
- improved monitoring and event logging