Doomed if an external Lacie HD doesn't show "Verify" or "Repair on Disc Utility once?

[mnya]

To be more specific, my 6-year old Lacie "porsche" portable just had a hard time "completely" showing up on Disc Utility.
By "completely," I mean, it showed up but the options to "Verify" or "Repair" the disc or disc permissions didn't become available for about half an hour or so. They eventually became available and the drive showed up on Finder then without me having to verify or repair anything, but I was just worried that this incident might mean that I should probably think that this drive is close to dying or something like that. Any ideas?
I don't remember this ever happening, as I hadn't used this drive for more than a year...

 

[justperry]

Is copying from and to it fast, if it's also slow it is guaranteed to fail soon.
If I were you I would at least make a new Backup to a different drive, 6 years is already quite some time, and ALL drives eventually die, so better be safe if you don't want to loose your data.