Interesting that most of the comments about this are by men.

I have a Synology and I set everything up using the web GUI. We have a Mac, a Windows laptop and desktop. I set up a volume for each with the largest volume being the desktop. I store all of our music, videos and pictures on the largest volume. The other two I set up for automatic backups of the laptops. Setup only took a few minutes, the GUI is pretty intuitive.

True, I believe in the long run it's more cost effective. Another advantage with the Synology is that you can use their RAID system and mix different size HDD. If you have old drives around you can use them and replace with new ones as your storage needs grow. You also don't need to populate the entire enclosure right off the bat. As long as you have at least two drives you're protected against a single failure. Your can check it out with this tool on their website:
http://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator

You might want to consider this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1012154-REG/synology_diskstation_ds414_4_bay_nas.html

I set one up about a month ago with 4 2TB WD Black drives for the price of a decent lens. Very easy to set up and use and provides seamless backups. For addtional security you can connect a USB 3.0 drive to it to make a backup and store off site.

You can connect via the web or not, your choice. No more messing around with multiple USB drives and you are protected completly against a single drive failure.

Another vote for the Synology products. I installed a DS414 this week and it's great being able to access files, music and photos from any device. Also can access offsite via the Internet. I ordered from B&H and it was up and running in a few minutes using WD black HDDs.