Storage servers can also perform incremental data replication, which works as follows:
- Upon establishing a replication policy, the replication process performs an initial copy of the source file system (or directory) to a destination / replication target file system.
- Once a successful initial copy has occurred, the system performs incremental copies (replications) at scheduled intervals. During an incremental data file replication, the system copies to the target, in full, those files that have been changed since the last scheduled replication. During an incremental data object replication, the system copies to the target, in full, those objects that have been changed since the last scheduled replication.
- For file replication only, to replicate large files more efficiently, the server also supports incremental block level replication. With incremental block-level replication, only the changes in files are replicated and not the whole file, thus reducing the amount of data replicated and the overall replication time.