No matter what you do, you will have to rip your CD collection. If the server has a drive you can do it on the server. I personally have music server behind my main audio rack, so I cannot use it for ripping.
The Bryston BDP-2 supports NAS storage. So you would rip your CDs on any el cheapo PC on the network (using a good ripper like Exact Audio Copy), and store your data on a NAS. A NAS can be configured for RAID 1 as suggested by lupinthe3rd. You set up the Bryston to look for music files on the NAS and presto. Not sure how well this would work if you have no ethernet connection close to the BDP-2. You can probably get this to work wirelessly. Another option is indeed to use USB storage.
There are many ways to skin the computer audio cat, and it may indeed be a little confusing to the novice...
The Bryston BDP-2 supports NAS storage. So you would rip your CDs on any el cheapo PC on the network (using a good ripper like Exact Audio Copy), and store your data on a NAS. A NAS can be configured for RAID 1 as suggested by lupinthe3rd. You set up the Bryston to look for music files on the NAS and presto. Not sure how well this would work if you have no ethernet connection close to the BDP-2. You can probably get this to work wirelessly. Another option is indeed to use USB storage.
There are many ways to skin the computer audio cat, and it may indeed be a little confusing to the novice...