Using external hard drive on a Time Capsule as a network drive for PCs.

I own a Macbook Air and am using a 2TB Time Capsule router. I am currently using for automatic backups for my Macbook Air.
I also own 2 PC laptops for the rest of the family. Would it be possible to use an external hard drive connected to the USB port of the Time Capsule as a network drive for the PCs? I want to share files between the two PCs.
Thanks

Yes, you can do that.. although it is not necessarily as straight forward as you might think it should be.
1. The TC has to be running SMB compatible names. short, no spaces, pure alphanumeric.
2. The disk must be formatted to file system the TC can read. HFS+ or Fat32.. but the HFS+ is vastly superior.. the actual format is irrelevant from sharing point of view as it is still shared via SMB to the network.
3. It is slow.. half the speed of the same drive plugged into your computer.. although if the connection is over wireless that is probably irrelevant.
4. You might need a powered hub to get the drive to work.. Apple underpower the USB.. and even a powered disk still won't work.
5. There are some issues with the TC getting the USB drive to work.. too many factors to say you will have issues or not.. but be aware this is not as straight forward as it could be. or should be.
6. If you want to share files.. you can always share them directly.. pc to pc or pc to mac.. there is no necessity to do it via a network store.. You can also use the 2TB internal drive.. create a disk image and you can then store you data in that. Internal drive is much more reliable and faster.
See http://pondini.org/TM/TCQ3.html

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