>Monthly Ghost image to USB external harddrive. (I also do copies of solutions and projects to the same drive on a daily basis)

You KNOW I'd never call you cheap, but these things have other uses as well - handwarmer, doorstopper, you name it.
Honestly: Get more than one. Disconnect if not in use. Get another internal drive, if it isn't a laptop. USB's *are* more susceptible to sudden powerdowns, cable slipping, blue screens and so on. Redundancy is cheap and the key. And don't forget to rotate with the one in your bank vault - it might be really important if the whole cable nest disappears.

regards

thomas