Merge Replication Snapshot Files I am using Merge Replication with SQL 2012. I look in the snapshot directory, but the largest file in there is a prc file which is 646 KB.

I know for sure that the biggest of my replicated tables is 25 MB in the database after replicating, so I am not sure I understand why there aren't larger files in the snapshot directory?

Also is there a place I can look for the snapshot files as they are downloaded to the subscriber?

For instance the merge agent outputs messages such as,

Downloaded 100 change(s) in 'tableName' (100 inserts) : 144083 total


I would like to see the data being downloaded and get a feel for how large it is.
There is a lot of information here,

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms151769(v=sql.105).aspx


And here,

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms152502(v=sql.105).aspx


So the thing to be aware of, because I was using parameterised filters the snapshot folder above doesn't contain any data, only schema.

Also I was not filtering correct using SUSER_SNAME() so the filtering was not using the snapshot at all causing me performance issues.

Once that was sorted I could see in the snapshot folder there subfolders with a snapshot for each user of the system. This data is the data filtered for that particular user.