DFS replication between two Win2003 servers

Chuku gives some good advice above.

Basically you can throttle the bandwith from the DFS management console for the times you allow. The only problem there is that with the 4 hour? time difference between here you kind of have alot of the day wasted if your throttling to minimize bandwidth while people are in the offices.

I do not believe you can force a replication when you want to DFS just does its thing and in my experience will repplicate the files when it finishes its computation.

One thing that may be helpful for you is increasing the staging file size on both of the servers. Basically the staging file is where DFS does its checks for changes. The larger this is the faster DFS will be able to pull files in check them and then replicate the changes.

One last thing are both of these servers DFS-R (2k3 R2 edition) if not you will want to get them onto this and install all of the latest patches and upgrades. The DFS-R version uses Remote Differential Compression and will minimize the amount of data that needs to be replicated across the wire.

Guys - thanks for the responses.

@xxdcmast: I am not sure they are R2 edition. How do I tell (I didnt build the environment)?  Will it say R2 if I right click MY COMPUTER and choose properties?  Also in this scenario there is the DC in the US, the DC in the Uk and the file server in the US where the shares are (in the UK the DC is also the file server).  I assume I should check the versions of all 3 machines?  If they are not R2 is there a way to upgrade without reinstalling?

@chuku: In the articles you reference there are screenshots of a "DFS Management" snap in for MMC - where can I find this?  I wonder if thats a screenshot from an R2 version of Win2003...?

Once I digest and exhaust my questions I will come back and split the points between the two of you, it looks like you both have given me lots to chew on - thanks a bunch.

@xxdcmast: you said:
"One thing that may be helpful for you is increasing the staging file size on both of the servers. Basically the staging file is where DFS does its checks for changes. The larger this is the faster DFS will be able to pull files in check them and then replicate the changes. "

How is this adjusted?

if you open mmc console and click add you'll see the DFS option.

@chuku:
It must be the non R2 version - my DFS MMC tool is called "Distributed File System" and has virtually NO options.  Looks nothing like the screenshot.  Sounds like R2 is the way to go...none of the systems involved are R2, btw.  I found a different Win2003 server that has the R2 version of the OS installed and it says it right under the GENERAL tab when you choose Properties from right-clicking MY COMPUTER.

I also didn't see any way to adjust bandwidth but maybe that's just another limitation of this version of DFS

DFS=Distributed File System

I get that - the tool looks different though, completely different options and such.