+1 for Exact Audio Copy, +1 for dbpoweramp (which can do more if you want). These two are really all you need. Almost any computer grade drive can work. This is OLD technology now. Even a $30 computer optical drive is up to the task on clean, relatively unscratched discs. Bypassing crappy Windows though is key, hence the use of those two programs noted above.
Storage is cheap these days. If you are going to all the trouble to rip your discs, at least do them in FLAC so you’ll be "one and done" and not come back next year and wish you hadn’t ripped them to a lossy format.
Some even argue that it is better to rip to wav files, but wav offers no easy way of adding metadata or easy database sorting while FLAC does. If you don’t care about making the file size smaller say using FLAC level 8 (the best), you could always rip to FLAC level 0, which has no compression at all, but retains the ability to hold metadata. I guess ALAC isn’t bad either.
Various programs can help you with importing the metadata. I use mp3tag (which despite its name, also works for FLAC and ALAC). It can often find and import the album information and cover art from various online repositories like Discogs. (Don't trust iTunes. It sucks at this and often misidentifies CDs).
My nephew paid his then 13-year-old kid a dollar for every 10 CDs he ripped. Best bargain he ever got. The kid got wise later and wanted $30 for mowing the yard.
