If I explain how I have it in my house this may help you.
I have 3 PCs in my house, a family one downstairs that my wife mainly uses, one for my son in his bedroom, and one for me in my small office upstairs.
All 3 of these PC connect to the same router, and they are all networked together, so I can sit at any one of the 3 PCs and see files and folders on either of the other two PCs.
I can also copy files and folders between any of the 3 PCs.
But connected to the PC in my office is a NAS, and I only have the NAS software on the PC in my office.
So I can connect to the NAS on the PC in my office, but my wife and son on the other two PCs CANT get access to the NAS.
If I want to put something on the NAS that is on my wife or sons PC I have to copy it to my PC first (over the network), then use my PC to copy it to the NAS.
So there is no need (if you don't want to) to put the Buffalo software on your laptop.