using samba to backup NT to unix tape drive ?

[Tony Jones]

I have an NT system that I wish to back up. However, it has no tape drive.
I do have a Unix system (FreeBSD) on the network with a tape drive.

I was wondering whether sharing NT's disks and using smbtar (on the FreeBSD
system) would be a reliable method of generating a FULL backup ?

The NT system to be backed up has two SCSI disks C: (9.1GB NTFS) and 
D: (2 GB FAT16 [Windows98]). 

Are there any things to watch out for ? Is the 1024 max path length an
issue ? I guess it depends on how deep my NT directory hierarchy is ?

If I ever have to recover either of the above disks on the NT system, I have
a spare 200mb IDE disk (not normally installed) with NT on it (sees the
above two disks as D: and E:). Should I also consider booting from this
disk to do the backup ? Or is it safe to share the disk that you booted
from ?

Appreciate any tips/comments to alternate ways to go about this.

Please CC: me on any replies.

Tony