A method whereby a transaction log is converted to an intent log and vice versa while the replication system is operating, thus allowing the replication system to operate primarily as a transaction log, but switch eventually to an intent log before an overflow condition of the transaction log occurs. The size of the hybrid log is tuned so that it remains a transaction log (with all the benefits) for commonly occurring small network outages but will convert to an intent log (and thus not overflow) if a prolonged outage occurs.