macbook pro wireless access to NTFS external HDD

Hi! I just bought a new macbook pro. We have a home wireless network using a netgear wndr3400 wireless router with a WD hard drive plugged into the router via USB2. The HD is in NTFS format with a lot of photos stored on it. We have other windows PCs on the network so I need the ability to read and write to the hard drive wirelessly from either a PC or a mac. So two questions:

1) I can see/access the hard drive on the network from my windows machines, but cannot see it from the mac even though the mac is connected to the network. How do I gain wireless access to the HD from the mac?

2) From everything I have read, Paragon for Mac is the best way to gain mac read/write access to the NTFS drive...correct? Or are there other ways to go?

There is no need for an app to enable read write/access between differently formatted drives across a network. The network handles all of that.

Try entering " smb://readyshare " (without the quotes) in the address bar of your browser. If that doesn't work, time to open the owner's manual for the router and browse thru chapter 7.