When creating large replicas that are greater than 2 GB from a master database, use the EXPORT SUBSCRIPTION and IMPORT commands. However, when synchronizing BLOB data, the limitation of 2 GB per synchronization message doesn’t apply. You can export any subscription from a master database to a file and later import that file to a replica. For details, see Managing data with synchronization bookmarks.
Note A replica can be created by subscribing to a publication from a master database, but because data is sent in one logical chunk, this method is problematic for replicas larger than 2 GB unless the data is BLOB data. Downloading large amounts of data may require a substantial amount of time, and there are limitations in sending the large data in a single advanced replication message.