samba - Jun 2008 - Newbie - sharing b/w OSX, Windows & Linux

Hi,

I am trying to upgrade my home backup system.? So, I was considering one of
those network router devices into which you can plug in USB external hard drives
so that they function as network drives.? Now, I have 3 computers - 1 with
Vista, 1 OSX and linux and I wanted to backup all of them over the network on
the same external drive.?

(1) Can I use Samba in such a situation with a single ext3 FS on the external
drives ?

(2) Do I need to connect the external drive to a linux box on which I run Samba
?? Or is it possible to do some kind of firmware install of Samba on the
external drive itself (I did read somewhere that there are some ethernet drives
available with Samba installed as firmware).? That way I can plug in my external
drives directly into the router.

(3) Finally, do I have to install some versions of Samba on both the Vista and
the OSX computers
 so that they can see the Samba exported external network drive ?? If so, are
there binaries available for OSX & Vista or do I have to do a cygwin install
?

Since I am new to Samba, any additional comments are also welcome.

> I am trying to upgrade my home backup system.  So, I was considering one of
those network router devices into which you can plug in USB external hard drives
so that they function as network drives.  Now, I have 3 computers - 1 with
Vista, 1 OSX and linux and I wanted to backup all of them over the network on
the same external drive.
>
> (1) Can I use Samba in such a situation with a single ext3 FS on the
external drives ?
>
Yes. Do this on your linux machine.
>
> (2) Do I need to connect the external drive to a linux box on which I run
Samba ?
Yes
>Or is it possible to do some kind of firmware install of Samba on the
external drive itself (I did read somewhere that there are some ethernet drives
available with Samba installed as firmware).  That way I can plug in my external
drives directly into the router.
>
Unless you are a linux expert I would not attempt this.
>
> (3) Finally, do I have to install some versions of Samba on both the Vista
and the OSX computers
>  so that they can see the Samba exported external network drive ?  If so,
are there binaries available for OSX & Vista or do I have to do a cygwin
install ?
>
You never install samba on windows machines. But the OSX machine you
will probably need samba.

With all of that said why not use a network backup solution like
bacula or amanda?

John