How to introduce computer audio to my system?

First, what is your budget, what is your appetite for DIY systems integration, and what quality level do you want to achieve? In my estimation, you can get "state of the art" DIY for around 5K, and 10K prepackaged. You can get "very good" for around 1K DIY and 2K prepackaged.

You can get phenomenal out of the box solutions which will give you AES/EBU outputs, ranging from the Bryston BDP-2 (2K) to something like the Weiss MAN301 (10K).

You can get similar sound quality for less money if you go DIY, but far more hassle piecing together your own system (either MAC or PC based).

I personally own a CAPS 2.0, run River Remote on an IPad and use an Offramp 5 converter. Probably sonically equivalent to the Weiss MAN301 for half the cost, but not for the faint of heart (I am technically savvy - would not recommend this to someone that is not)

Simple test. If doggiehowser's post reads like Chinese to you (and you have no desire to learn Chinese), get a turnkey dedicated music server. If not, buy a Mac or PC.

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 problem with RAID is if you get hit by a power surge both drives in the enclosure will be wiped out. The safest backup strategy is to have one backup drive physically disconnected from power. Of course, better still is to have a backup drive in different physical location.