Suppose you got an excellent dynamic file assignment algorithm. But, how to proceed dynamically from the current to the optimal file allocation? Imagine replication of your files and some sort of voting strategy --- the question then is, how to maintain consistency if the current and the optimal file assignment differ not only in the location of the files but also in the number of replicas? This paper tries to answer these questions and introduces the basic relocation protocols which preserve consistency during relocation, as well as a priority-driven, storage capacity-based approach to bring the basic relocation protocols in an optimal sequence in order to move quickly and as close as possible towards the optimal file assignment. 1 Introduction We consider a mathematical model of an information network of jRj nodes, some of which contain copies of our jDj data files. The degree of replicas has not to be fixed. Within this network, every node is able to communicate with every other no...