The other day I picked up a Maxtor Shared Storage NAS system from the local computer shop. This system has a 500 gig hard drive, two USB connectors and a 100mbit ethernet LAN connector.
After I hooked up the MSS to my network switch, it automatically requested an IP address from my DHCP server and it worked.
The NAS has a web interface to configure shares and users and other maintenance tasks. If you go to the management site, you can assign a work group / domain name. If you do that, the Maxtor shows up in the windows network environment and pretends that it is a normal computer. As you can see in the screen shot, the device can also share printers. Just connect your USB printer to the Maxtor and there is your network printer!
I did install the software that comes with the box, but you really don't need it. It's just another crappy icon in the notification area sitting there doing nothing.
If you connect your USB memory stick to the USB port, the MSS shares the memory stick with the rest of the network.