External Hard Drive/Networking Issue

Hi Guys,

I'm wanting to get an external firewire hard drive for extra storage, however, I don't want to spend the money until I know if you can use the external hard drive over a network. Can I read the drive from another computer that is on my network or is it limited to my computer? If I can see it from another computer, is it read-only or can I write to it as well? Will I still be able to share my iTunes music if they are stored on the external hard drive? What about vid files? Sorry, as you can tell, I'm getting a little frustrated.

Any help or input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Moorman

if you want a centralized network storage location, then you should think about getting WD Netcenter, Time Capsule or any other Network Attached Storage Device (NAS). This way you can address all your needs like Stream vids and music from any PC/MAC in the network, Read/Write to your NAS from other PC's/ MAC on the network (Wirelessly) and ofcourse store and stream your itunes music from this storage device.

Thanks... but

Thanks for your reply,
but how much slower would read and write times be on a network hard drive as compared to a regular external hard drive? And is there a drive out there that is a NAS drive but also has access to it through firewire? I've been looking for a while, but can't seem to find any with both.