If replication is not paused then when you place new data on the primary, you may see X outstanding writes briefly, but then those writes should be written to seconday and replication should show "up-to-date" - unless you are continually writting. You cannot "see" data on the secondary as it is readonly - you can assign a drive letter as a readonly drive, but as Windows it not expected a readonly drive to change it will not show updates to the drive and this is not supported as anything you copy or view from the drive may look corrupted as data maybe changing underneath (however if you place new data on primary, then unassign drive letter at secondary and then reassign you will be able to see your new data). If you stop (not pause) replication then both sites become writable and you can see data on the secondary if you assign volume at secondary a drive letter. Similarly if you reverse replication, you will be able to see and access data on the secondary.
Checkpoints are only required at certain times, like starting replication and are not used when replication is running normally. Normally you would not "stop" replication, you only "pause" or reverse direction.
You can have multiple rlinks meaning you can have multiple secondaries.
Mike
