NAS for backup.

I have a spare 160gb drive and I want to attach it to a LAN via Ethernet. I see many ethernet external enclosures, but I don't really know how they work.. i read about needing FTP or some web interface for most of them.

I esentially want to mount the disk on other computers on the LAN (windows), and access it like any other local disk. I also would prefer it have some power-save capability, since it is primarily a backup device and rarely accessed.

You configure most of them through a web interface. They should come with some kind of software as well that will let you configure it.

Once its configured for your network, you can map a drive letter to the share name you give it.