[Sussex] More backup solution questions

[John D.]

Hey there list,

Ages ago, I asked about backup solutions.

Dave C kindly gave me an old desktop box with Freenas installed. He even 
visited and got it going for me.

Unfortunately actually making use of it is proving rather problematic i.e. I 
can make a backup but when I then look at the backup, apart from the music 
stuff that I've ripped, the backup only seems to contain empty directories 
(albeit the same as whats in my /home).

Having done a fair bit of digging, it seems that the sketchy and somewhat 
limited info that I can find about Freenas is rather over my head, so I've 
decided that it's probably gonna be easier to change to the external hard 
drive (drive and basic case) way of trying to make my backups.

I looked at the ones that someone posted a link too at span.com, but am rather 
confused as nearly all of the ones in my price range (about the £50 mark) go 
on about windows/mac compatibility, with windows files systems support etc.

So, if I just intend to use this kind of device is what looks like the best 
option and will be connected via ethernet, does all the other stuff matter ? 
i.e. as far as I can tell, I just need TCP/IP, static IP support and ethernet 
connectivity. Would that be right or am I missing something?

The ones I've been looking at are these ones

http://www.span.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=19_1302_1328

regards

John D.