You don't have to have an NAS drive, even USB 1.1 is fast enough to do the job, but a big NAS drive with RAID 5 is a simple way to have some backup. Otherwise redundant external USB drives will be fine. Just make sure you get ones that are well ventilated with fans like the Western Digital ones. Easier still is mount some drives in your desktop cases and just use those.
With iTunes you can turn on the share feature and have the hard drives connected to desktops and the wireless notebook can share those files directly via iTunes.
Unless Belkin finally releases their wireless USB interface, if you use a USB dac it will have to be wired to the laptop, not the drives. Wireless print servers won't work. You also have limits on USB cable length unless you use a USB optical repeater.
I don't know about the realibility of the AE units, but bear in mind they've sold millions of them so you have to figure some crapped out. Even if they did only last 2 years they only cost about $100 in the first place. They also have a built in DAC (not a great one) so that would get you started until you find the DAC you want, but it will have to have a toslink input or you will need a optical to spdif converter.
Apple claims they are accessible Won't that work for you? The reason I ask is that many Apple notebooks are very quiet whereas many PC notebooks have fans that are loud enough to be distracting.
You can also use their Front row software which will make it very easy to navigate through iTunes.
With iTunes you can turn on the share feature and have the hard drives connected to desktops and the wireless notebook can share those files directly via iTunes.
Unless Belkin finally releases their wireless USB interface, if you use a USB dac it will have to be wired to the laptop, not the drives. Wireless print servers won't work. You also have limits on USB cable length unless you use a USB optical repeater.
I don't know about the realibility of the AE units, but bear in mind they've sold millions of them so you have to figure some crapped out. Even if they did only last 2 years they only cost about $100 in the first place. They also have a built in DAC (not a great one) so that would get you started until you find the DAC you want, but it will have to have a toslink input or you will need a optical to spdif converter.
Apple claims they are accessible Won't that work for you? The reason I ask is that many Apple notebooks are very quiet whereas many PC notebooks have fans that are loud enough to be distracting.
You can also use their Front row software which will make it very easy to navigate through iTunes.