How to Test Log Shipping I am evaluating log shipping as a solution to keep a permanent failover copy of our live database. It looks ideal.

We are using Filestream which is part of the reason to use it over mirroring.

I have a secondary database in the (Standby / Read-Only) state. In my tests which are on a small database I have been able to take it offline, copy the mdf and ldf files, create a new database and replace the mdf and ldf files.

This then gives me a copy of the database to test that the log shipping is working as expected, and the idea is that I want to test that the database will be in a state that come go back live straight away.

The problem comes when I go back to our live database and use log shipping. To test that it can failover I cannot copy away the mdf and ldf files because it is using Filestream, and those files won't include the Filestream data.

Suggestions for the testing? I would ideally like to keep the secondary database connected to log shipping because it is big and rebuilding it again wouldn't be ideal.
I'm not sure why your copying the mdf and ldf files but I'm assuming that you want a copy of the database without breaking the log chain.

This can be done by taking a backup of the database and specifying the COPY_ONLY option which will not effect the log chain http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191495.aspx