Best Time Machine setup

Hi,


I have a Macbook and a Imac both on the same network and both are running 10.7

I am looking to find a cheap way to backup both systems.


I was thinking about putting a external drive on the imac and point time machine to back up to drive. I would assume I could point to the location on my macbook as well via networking (I don't mind to backup over lan\wlan)

I was looking at this drive
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/EliteALmini/RAID/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB (Can run as JOBD)

The reason is because its buss powered and is firewire 800 +usb2 with dual laptop drives. (I'd get my own hard drives though)

I was also looking at this drive for backups

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Mercury-EliteAL-Pro-RAID
It can have regular sized harddrives in it and go up to 4tb of raid mirrored storage. (Can it run JOBD - (Idependent disks)

In the mean time I am looking for a cheap mac mini to run the drives and keep it in my closet and also store other files there. Would that be a good plan to work towards?


I have not even though about apples time cap, just because I don't need a router at the moment.

 

I have a lot of large data I need to store (we are talking about 6tb now on usb portable drives) , I was thinking to go with the mini route because I can expand via usb and via firewire400\800.
The router you can only expand to one usb (Yes I know it works with a hub but no) and it would look like a night mare. plus my router is in my roof so I can't get to it with ease.


im not planing to run out and buy a mini this week. I have connections to some minis I can get in a year or so cheap.


right this minit is it worth to even start to think about timemacheen on a mini?

I might be buying a macbook air soon so it might be three computers backing up.