[markw10]

I have been looking for a couple hard drives for my home computing environment.

First, I want to get a good 'network server' drive. I am looking for something that is 750GB to 1TB. I definitely want it to be a ethernet drive but I also would like to have either a USB and/or Firewire port in case I have to connect locally at times. I will use this to store files that I can access from any Mac computer in my household. Also, I don't know if it is possible but I'd like to be able to use it with BacktomyMac or another way so that I can access my files through the internet while on the road. I have looked at many hard drives such as Iomega, Lacie, and Western Digital but OWC seems like a popular choice for Mac users. Do they make a hard drive that would fit my needs?

Second, I have a Macbook Pro with a 250GB hard drive. I'd like a Time Machine drive that would be 500-750GB. Once again, I prefer to be able to use the Time Machine drive over the network but it seems at this time that's something that Time Machine doesn't support so I plan to use Firewire and/or USB. I also want a Ethernet port so that I can be future proof in case Time Machine supports this at some time. What OWC drive would best support this need?

One last question, I have heard I want to look for an AFP drive. For example with the server drive I want it to be as easy to use as an AirDisk drive, so I can simply browse it in the finder without logging on but I see that only Lacie and Iomega make these and some have bad reviews. From what I'm seeing the OWC drives are NDAS, not NAS like others. Does this function more like AFP with a Mac? My main concern is it says several places that these drives don't work with Leopard or at least the NDAS part doesn't. Does this cause big problems?