when it said 'easily read the transaction log', I wasn't sure, I suppose it depends how you define easy!

thanks for the reminder though.

a few things -

with TDE enabled you will get very little compression in your backups.

The size of the backup (leaving out any compression) will be equal to the space used...

note:

MS12-070 QFE security patch should read 10.00.5826

check out sp_help_revlogin.

database level permissions will come over as part of the mirrring replication.

You need to check for any server roles granted and server level permissions as well. Also worth...

I'm afraid I don't have one, I would google it or there may be one or something you can alter in the scripts section of this site

if using maintenance plans the backup may be filling the drive and then the space is being released when the maintenance plan deletes the oldest backup.

You would be advised...

shrinking logs does not break the lsn chain so will not affect logshipping or mirroring.

However, avoid shrinking the logs if you expect them to grow again due to normal activity.

thanks, worth knowing.

Brandie, just to confirm, you have enterprise edition to enable the use of asynchronous? If you can tolerate some data loss, would log-shipping be an alternative?

to provide evidence mirroring is...

it does. - cons - more complex, pros - more obscurity and flexibility.

Check SQL is listening on both ports (it will be in the SQL errorlog on startup.)

is this a named instance?

If so even though the port assignment is dynamic, the instance will always try and assign the same port it obtained on its very first start...

thanks for posting back

Hmmm, I have never had script upgrade take anywhere near that. Sounds like that is your real problem and anything else than a fix for that is just a...

how many databases in these instances? script upgrade usually runs in a couple of minutes. I have patched instances with about 300 databases with acceptable recovery times.

Maybe your log files...

Troubleshooting SQL Server: A Guide for the Accidental DBA

is a good one