Backup Drive Corrupted

I was on vacation and upon return noticed that my periodical backups hadn't been running since the 21st of Jan.  I back up data using Time Machine, to a LaCie 750GB drive.

I hadn't restarted the iMac in awhile (to which the drive is attached), so I restarted it...that didn't get it working.  I also restarted the drive itself...no resolution either.

I opened up Disk Utility and it saw the drive, so now I'm running a "verify disk" and "repair".  I'm hoping this fixes the issue, but I'm now wary, as it's taking quite a while, but this is probably due to the size of the drive.  Also, maybe there's a ton of errors?  I don't know.

I'd hate to lose the data on this drive.  Perhaps I need to think of some type of backup procedure of the backup drive (maybe backing it up every six months or so).

It might be time to look at a different solution.

EDIT:  Yeah... Disk Utility couldn't repair the partition, so I had to erase it to get it working again.  It is fine now, but I think I'm going to need to periodically back up the back-up drive.  Lost a LOT of pictures and such.  I'm actually thinking on using a cloud-based storage solution.

Time Machine

So, I've got a 750GM LaCie drive that I bought maybe a year and a half ago at Microcenter for the purpose of backing up my work laptop's hard disk.  Instead, I decided to use it for my Macbook.  I've been using it off and on, but after I got the iMac, I decided that I could just activate Time Machine on the desktop.  In fact, I may be able to use it for both the laptop and desktop.

Backing up every hour for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all the previous months is cool as hell when all you have to do is keep it plugged in (and not that this is without configuration).

Sooner or later, though, I'm going to have to get a bigger drive...got a 1TB disk in the iMac.