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Storage Replica is not Distributed File System Replication  Volume-level block storage 
replication is not a good candidate for use in branch-office scenarios. Branch-office networks tend 
to be highly latent, highly utilized, and lower bandwidth, which makes synchronous replication 
impractical. A branch office often replicates data in a one-to-many with read-only destinations, 
such as for software distribution, and Storage Replica is not capable of this in the first release. 
When replicating data from a branch office to a main office, Storage Replica dismounts the 
destination volume to prevent direct access. 
It is important to note, nevertheless, that many customers use Distributed File System Replication 
(DFSR) as a DR solution even though it is often impractical for that scenario—DFSR cannot 
replicate open files and is designed to minimize bandwidth usage at the expense of performance, 
leading to large recovery-point deltas. Storage Replica might make it possible for you to retire 
DFSR from some of these types of DR duties. 
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Storage Replica is not backup Some IT environments deploy replication systems as backup 
solutions due to their zero-data-loss options when compared to daily backups. Storage Replica 
replicates all changes to all blocks of data on the volume, regardless of the change type. If a user 

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CHAPTER 2 | Software-defined datacenter 
deletes all data from a volume, Storage Replica replicates the deletion instantly to the other 
volume, irrevocably removing the data from both servers. 
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Storage Replica is not Hyper-V Replica or SQL AlwaysOn Storage Replica is a general 
purpose, storage-agnostic engine. By definition, it cannot tailor its behavior as ideally as 
application-level replication. This might lead to specific feature gaps that encourage you to 
deploy or remain on specific application replication technologies. 
Storage Spaces Direct 
Storage Spaces Direct enables service providers and enterprises to use industry standard servers with 
internal drives to build highly available and scalable software defined storage. Using servers with 
internal drives decreases complexity, increases scalability, and enables use of storage devices that 
were not previously possible, such as SATA solid state disks to lower cost of flash storage, or NVMe 
solid state disks for better performance. 
Storage Spaces Direct removes the need for a shared SAS fabric, simplifying deployment and 
configuration. Instead, it uses the network as a storage fabric, using SMB3 and SMB Direct (RDMA) for 
high-speed, low-latency CPU-efficient storage. To scale out, simply add more servers to increase 
storage capacity and I/O performance. Following are some more features and characteristics of 
Storage Spaces Direct: 
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