Lost among all the iPhone & Apple TV hype was the release of Apple's new Airport Extreme wireless router. Not only does it support the uber-fast draft 802.11n spec (which, it turns out, all of Apple's recent Core 2-based laptops had 802.11n cards pretending to be 802.11g cards, requiring only a firmware update to enable) but it also has a spiffy USB port.
Said USB port can be used to connect Bonjour-capable devices for sharing across the network. So plug in a USB hub, connect some external hard drives, and you have an instant NAS system! Even better, they'll auto-mount whenever you boot up!
Currently, I have to manually mount my networked drives. If I forget to mount the drive with my iTunes library before launching iTunes, it really doesn't like it. Freezes up and needs to be force-quit, and even corrupted my iPod once. Attach them to an Airport Extreme Base Station and that won't happen, the drives will just mount automatically when I start.
Plus, at only $179 it's more affordable than converting my old G4 to do the same task. I should be able to get more than $179 on eBay for the G4, and the Airport router will consume much less energy.
Now I just have to wait until February for Apple to release the darn thing.