Alternate Snapshot Locations

Alternate snapshot locations enable you to store snapshot files in a location other than, or in addition to, the default location, which is often located on the Distributor. Alternate locations can be on another server, on a network drive, or on removable media such as CD-ROMs or removable disks.

Saving snapshot files in an alternate location can alleviate disk overhead on the Distributor, offers an administrative advantage, and allows you to transfer files using removable media. 

Alternate snapshot locations are stored as a property of the publication. You can view this information in the publication properties on the Snapshot Location tab. Because the alternate snapshot location is a publication property, the Distribution Agent and the Merge Agent are able to locate the proper snapshot as part of the synchronization process. However, if you change the alternate location after creating the initial snapshot, the Distribution Agent and the Merge Agent may not be able to find the alternate location and you may have to reinitialize the snapshot.

Subscribers running earlier versions of Microsoft® SQL Server™ cannot use the alternate snapshot location. Therefore, continue to use the default snapshot location to store snapshot files for those Subscribers.

If you want to specify an alternate snapshot folder location or if you want to compress snapshot files, create the publication without creating the initial snapshot immediately, set the publication properties for the snapshot location, and then run the Snapshot Agent for that publication.

Note  Do not specify an alternate location in publication properties that is the same as the default snapshot folder location. You will receive an error message, and should specify a different alternate location or use the default location.

You can also increase the availability of replication when using failover clustering by saving the snapshot files to a share on a server running Microsoft Cluster Server. For more information, see Failover Clustering .

To specify alternate snapshot locations