In the production environment I use Windows 2003 Servers with UNIX tools for that. They also are my schedulers to run scripts on all of the VMs, a centralized cron so to speak, so I can schedule, visually see, disable when needed, and run now when desired. With Workstation, I can do the same thing with Windows 7/8 to prove scripts and batch files. I could do something like what you suggest or with FreeNAS. I'd then have to us an NFS client on Windows and need another VM. This way I can just work in Windows to download and drag files around, and have Windows export directories as I do in the production environment...that is provided I can find something that works right. LOL!
Thanks!