How can I access my home media from the internet?

Question

At home all my media (audio, video, photos, etc...) are on an external drive. This external drive is plugged into a router (which happens to have a USB slot) and is exposed to my home network via DLNA and Windows based Network Neighborhood. At home I consume the media via a DLNA client (PS3, iPad, etc...).

How can I expose this media when I am outside the home network? For instance, I'd like to listen to my audio collection while I am on the work Windows 7 computer?

Solution 1

I recently installed SubSonic on my Amahi home server and opened it up to the world through a Proxy entry in my Apache servers. You need a server to host the tool (its java based) and will need to open an appropriate router port to support it. There is a nice web interface and mobile clients as well.

Solution 2

You have to have some server on your network which is configured to accept requests from the Internet and serve you your files. One way to do this is with Amahi Home Server. This requires a dedicated PC, though it doesn't necessarily have to be a new or powerful one.