Where should I store data on a VMWare Server (or any virtual machine) install?

I have a Linux server at home that runs VMWare Server. I have one virtual machine for my web server, another for my zimbra server, another for my mysql server, and another that runs windows xp for testing.

My problem is where to store the data. Web files, email files, mysql, etc?

Which of these scenarios are the best?

Each virtual machine stores it's own data on it's own virtual hard disk
Create a new virtual machine for data storage and use Samba or NFS to share
Use Samba or NFS on the host machine to share the data
something else i haven't thought of yet

I know that storing Mysql data files remotely via NFS or Samba is a bad thing but I would like to keep my data consolidated together. (Or maybe i'm on crack for thinking that)

Anyway, please set me straight! Thanks.

Solution

Why do you want to move data off the VMs? Also, how much of the data is truly shared data? If you want to move it off so it is backed up somewhere, then create separate backup scripts/protocols for each machine. Backing up MySQL data is much different from backing up Windows files.

If the data truly is shared, then I would:

use Samba/NFS for everything but MySQL data and have the data stored on the host machine or another real machine.
put the database on a separate real machine and simply link the other machines into it (I might also look at setting up a backup script for the DB)