Can I serve external storage over a wireless network without OSX server?

The title says it all. I am looking into buying a Mac Mini to use as a home theater PC, as well as an external storage server for wireless time machine backups of my 15" MBP and my wife's 13"MPB.

Essentially, I want Time Capsule functionality with the added benefit of having a Mac hooked up to my home theater.

When I ran my scheme past the sales person at my local Mac reseller, he told me that to share external storage over a wireless network I would need Lion or Snowleopard server.

Is this true? I thought I would be able to do it with a standard copy of Lion, but don't really have any experience to back that up.

Any help or advice on the subject would be must appreciated.

Macs have historically served up to 5 clients at the same time with regular OS X. I haven't found this stated anywhere for Lion yet.

I have had no problem accessing my Western Digital Drive over my network with my Mini running Lion.

Thanks, guys. I know I could just set up a test, and try to serve an external from one of my MBPs to the other, but I thought there might be more insightful information found here. I would like to know for sure before dropping $600 on a Mini.

The answer is yes. You can share an external HD using the client OS X.

Time Machine functionality, No.

OS X server has Time Machine capabilities which is what I use for backing up all my Macs wirelessly.

There are some ghetto Time Machine solutions out there but if you really want a legitimate backup that works like you'd expect, pony up the $49 bucks for Lion Server and install it on your Mac Mini.

You don't have to buy the Lion Server model mini, that simply has a better CPU and more internal storage. Installing the Server app over the base mini will suffice.

Right on. Thanks MacsWork. I really appreciate the insight. I guess I wasn't considering the option of installing Lion Server over a basic Mini. That will save me some dough.