@Mark - Thanks for the reply and info. None of the databases are that big in size - all were much smaller than a GB. I should've used "most widely used" instead of "largest" in my description. Typically, they have been in-use for over a decade. The tech note mentions a problem was fixed in 8.5.3, but the source server is 8.5.3 and the destination server is 9.0.1 FP3.
The New Replica process description in the tech note is interesting. I'd be curious to know more. I've observed the entries that are posted in the Admin Requests database to "Check Access for New Replica Creation", "Accelerated Create Replica", and "Create Replica". I had thought that the "Create Replica" only creates a replica stub (because the Domino Administrator client only shows the replica ID instead of a file name), and that scheduled replication was what actually populated the data.
@John - Also, thanks for you reply and info. We are definitely looking at copying them at the operating system level. Depending upon my customer, we might open a PMR. Which debugging variables would be useful?