Apparatus, systems, and methods may operate to grant a renewable lease synchronization lock to a node for a file having copies distributed among a group of nodes that is unsynchronized and for which no write lock has already been granted. The synchronization lock disables modification of the file, and enables synchronization of a file copy on the requesting node to a synchronization master copy on another node in the group. A renewable lease write lock can be granted to a node in the group when the file is synchronized and when the write lock has not already been granted. The write lock disables granting the synchronization lock, and enables file modification. The synchronization lock and write lock are maintained until their respective leases expire. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.