Home Network for both macs and pc's, with network storage

Hello,

I'm interested in setting up a home network consisting of the following:

- Linksys WAG120N Wireless Router Linksys by Cisco WAG120N Wireless-N Modem Router - 150 mbps (for ADSL / telephone line connections i.e BT Broadband): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

- iMac Intel running Snow Leopard

- Attached to this is a WD 500GB HD

-MacBook Pro running Leopard

- Dell Inspirion Laptop running Win7 Home Premium

Basically, I'm primarily aiming for the hard drive to be network accessible. This would hopefully enable back ups for all computers.

Many thanks

You are probably better off with a NAS drive

Network-attached storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've been thinking that, but want to avoid the £80 cost.

Is there no simple way to do it with my existing set-up?

Thanks

I've got both a NAS drive and a USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme. The NAS is formatted NTFS and the USB was formatted with my Mac. All drives are visible and writable from both PC's and Mac's.

USB TO LAN RJ45 Ethernet 10Mb/100Mb Network Adapter: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Could I use this to simply plug my HD into my router and make it network accessible?

No, absolutely not. I would go for the nas storage if I were you, it's much more stable when it comes to windows 7 machines.