Using an Ethernet disk

I've just discovered that they make Ethernet disk drives and I'm wondering if this would be a good solution for my backups (I have two computers - desktop and laptop - linked via airport). I've got a couple of questions that I'm hoping to find the answers to...
1) Can Time Machine be used with an Ethernet disk drive over a LAN?
2) Will it be slow?
3) Does it matter if there's an Airport Extreme acting as the router?
4) If necessary, can I boot one of the computers from system files stored on the Ethernet disk?
Thanks in advance for any help
Eric

1. Yes
2. Yes, I've tried it over the wireless and I doubt that Ethernet will be any faster
3. No
4. No, Time Machine doesn't store backups as bootable clones. Besides, macs can't boot to a network drive like that.

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