Accessing network external hard drive wirelessly

I'm looking into getting additional external harddrive and want to be able to access it wirelessly. Is it possible to link a network harddrive to my wireless router and than access the external drive wirelessly from my MBP?

Yes that's entirely possible.

You can either go down the dedicated NAS route and have the drive attached by ethernet cable to your router or go down the standard USB attached hard disk that attaches to your router by USB (assuming your router has this ability).

Either way the disk will be available wirelessly over your network

Interesting!

I have an external HDD (Western Digital) which I have been attaching directly to my MBP via FireWire.

After reading this, I have attached it via USB to my TC -but it's not appearing in my Devices... is there more I need do?

Yes. Launch the Airport Utility and let it recognize the TC then choose Manual Setup. The window will change and one option at the top will be "Disks". Click that option then click the File Sharing tab to set your preferences for file sharing.

Beautiful! Thanks Slydude +1

Glad that helps. Thanks for the rep bump.

BTW Just in case it ever becomes necessary you can share more than one drive with this feature. I have an enclosure with two drive bays attached to my TC and it works fine. I think you could accomplish the same thing by attaching multiple enclosures to a USB hub and attaching that to the TC. I know the TC recognizes the hub because that's what my drive is attached to. I am using a self-powered hub though.

Without sounding stupid, is it possible to connect my external head drive to a different wireless router? Or do you have to have TC? As I have the Talk Talk router which has USB connection at the rear. I have plugged it in but nothing happens on my MB.

It should be possible but you will need to check the manual for your specific model. One of the pages I saw during a quick Google listed several possibilities.

When you check the manual look to see if it supports having a drive attached. Also check to see if it is expecting the drive to be in a specific format. Let us know that information and perhaps we cn help more.