The other day, my external drive died. Kaput! Finished! Whatever! It was a two-year-old Lacie product and I was using it for my Time Machine backup.

Here is the full story.

In anticipation of the Lion release, I decided that perhaps this would be the perfect time to clone my hard drive. So I downloaded a highly touted cloning program called SuperDuper.

Sounds good so far, right? Well, it was until I decided to partition my hard drive to accommodate both the SuperDuper and Time Machine backups.

All was good – too good, in fact. A few days later, the hard drive failed and I lost all my Time Machine archives. Plus, the SuperDuper program couldn’t complete any further updates. What a mess! What’s a senior geek to do?

After extensive – and I do mean extensive – research, I realized how ridiculous it was to place two separate backup options on one hard drive. Talk about a “duh” moment.

Luckily, the initial SuperDuper clone is still available on the dead Lacie drive but my Time Machine archive has disappeared.

So, I researched and researched numerous external drive options for Time Machine and came up with the G-Tech 500G Mobile unit available on the Apple store.

Look at this baby. It’s perfect and the reviews are fantastic. Plus the G logo compliments my name – GrannieTheGeek – and my maiden name, Giallonardo. Now, that’s karma for you!

I really wanted an external hard drive with a FireWire component. I love archiving photos and/or producing videos and, in terms of media work, I didn’t totally trust the wirelessly endowed Time Capsule from Apple. Not yet, anyway. If all goes well, I will use the G-Tech solely for archiving media and spring for the Time Capsule for Time Machine back-ups at a later date.

I will review this product next week when it arrives but, given the favorable reviews across the board, I don’t expect to be disappointed.

So, what do y’all think? Did Grannie The Geek make a good choice? I cannot wait to purchase Lion!