thank you for the response.

the backup is going to the local c drive and the trans log is going to the local d drive - the server gets backedup daily so i have the sql backups on tape from the nightly backups.

3 hours is ok for the trans logs -we can lose 3 hours -

i guess there are different ways to do backups - i am just wondering if using the maintenance option in sql is the most effective - i ask this becuase, from my experience, (which is very limited) i cant seem to get the backup and trans logs scheduled in the same maint job. i guess i could do one for each job - havent tried it yet -

thanks