Need some guidance with music server and cd ripping.

+1 re dbpoweramp. Excellent program that's easy too use. I'm also a fan of Roon and use BlueSound Node 2i units in my secondary music systems. 

Went through all of this 3 years ago with many of the same questions and confusion.  The aforementioned Bluesound is valid.  I’ve a friend who has been running one for 3 years without issue.

I went with a Naim UnitiServe and did not look back.  One box 2TB hard drive solution except for DAC.  You would need an external DAC.

Foobar 2000 and an external hard drive which I make available on my network. 

Foobar is free, maybe $100 for a good 2TB drive and external enclosure (make sure it has a fan!).  Get a second one for backup and use a free tool like syncback or synctoy or something similar.  I recommend backing up to the cloud also.

If I were you I’d strongly consider the Innuos Mini Mk.3 as it does everything (rip CSs, stream, DAC, easy-to-use and intuitive software), it does all these things very well and is supremely easy to use out of the box. Unlike Bluesound, Innuos makes MUCH more expensive streamers/servers (Zen and Zenith), and the Mini benefits from the trickle-down technology and expertise. It’s priced ($1250) similarly to the Vault 2i, but I’ll take the higher pedigree of the Mini. Plus you can add the linear power supply later and up the sound quality further if you want, especially if you’re using the Mini’s internal DAC (Note, someone is selling a near-new Mini Mk.3 with the $700 power supply on US Audio Mart for $1550, so about $400 savings over buying both new just FYI). Darko wrote a pretty thorough review of the Mini (with and without the external power supply) that I’d recommend reading if you’d like to learn more. Hope this helps, and best of luck.

The ZENMINI looks nice. How's the OS compared to BlueOS?

Thanks.