Wireless Access - Help needed

Hope someone can help.

Im not great with Airport, wireless etc.

This is what i would like to do.

I have an Mac Book Pro 17" with Snow Leopard, i have a 2Tb external Iomega RAID hard drive with all of my music on (approx 22000 tracks). The computer can access the internet wirelessly

I have recently bought a flat and would like my computer to be in the study but be able to play my music stored on the computer/external hard drive wirelessly on my hi-fi separates in the living room.

Ive had a look around and done some research and what i think i need is something like the Logitech Squeezebox Wireless Network Music Player and attach this to the hi-fi separates.

Problem is im not 100% sure on what i need on the mac side. Do i have to purchase an airport express base station thingy?

Any suggestions, tips or recommendations greatly received!

Essentially you just need to expose the Iomega drive on your network as an accessible file share.

There are a variety of products that will help you do this the Airport Express Base Station (AEBS) being one of them. However, you can always simply plug your hard drive into your MBP and expose the share using the standard file sharing mechanisms built into your Mac. So, you don't need the AEBS to get what you want.

The real choice for you is whether or not you want your external drive tied down to your MBP, or do you want to expose it on your network as a standalone unit. If you opt to go standalone, you will need the AEBS, or some other device, that will allow you to plug your Iomega drive into the unit and expose it on your network as an accessible file share.

The standalone approach has a few benefits being that you aren't physically tied down to the RAID drive as well as the fact that you aren't required to have your computer up and running to get access to your music. Personally I use the AEBS because it functions as both my router, as well as my NAS host. If you already have a router you are happy with, it may make more sense to get a cheap NAS device and connect your RAID drive to it.

At the very least you have a few choices and you can always connect the drive to your MBP in the interim until your ready to purchase a separate device.

Also, a quick read of the Logitech doc about the Squeezebox (and the associated SqeezeCenter software) suggests that you won't have any issues regardless of your choice of sharing the drive.

Thanks wmprice1240, the external hard drive is permantly attached via firewire to the laptop anyway.

hoping to by a tower next year anyway with much larger internal hard drive than the laptop.

think ill get the squeeze box see if it works, if it doesnt ill get the AEBS.

many thanks again