Do I Need NAS or External HD?

Ive got a few computers around the house (XP, Vista, Ubuntu). Not too fussed about the Ubuntu box. Got an XP box in the living room which with TVedia is a media centre. Media centre currently looks at shared drives of other boxes and can view media from over the network.

My storage is beginning to run out on some of the machines, and its mainly media files - photos, films, video footage, music, etc.

I originally thought, buy an EHD and dump it all on there, but then thought about perhaps a NAS solution? First off, I should point out im a real rookie when it comes to hardware, so please speak in lamens terms.

I heard some good things about Icy Boxes, heard some bad things about the Creative boxes, but come to a bit of a wall with any more ideas.

I have 3 spare drives - a Seagate BArracuda 750GB Sata drive, and a couple of 200GB drives that have come out of two broken MacBooks. Seems wise to put these drives to good use?

I currently have a Netgear DG834 as my router, some laptops access it via wireless, most are Ethernet cable.

1. Is NAS going to be a sensible option for me?

2. I dont want a power hungry device thats gonna mean ££ leccy bills.

3. Speed - I guess this is important, but not that important - Its going to be used to just store media - as long as I can play a video from the NAS device, thats all I need, isnt it? By freeing up my local drives, means I can use the extra local space for files that I might need to process on.

4. Price - Like I said, originally was going to get a EHD and for <£80 you can get a fair bit of storage. Some of these Icy Boxes were >£150 and as far as I understand it, were just the empty shell to put your drives into. Im not gonna say a set budget. But definitely <£200, ideally nearer 100 or less. I just need it to fulfil my requirements.


So what do you think. Ideally id like to end this thread with a confident decision on what device I require.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.