I have around 200 music Cd's and several older desktops lying around and im running netrunner on my current desktop. Is there a way that i can make a music server/or storage with access to the music using some of the older computer stuff i have lying around without trying to put all the music on my current desktop. I want to make something that is strictly all my music without crowding my desktop. Thanks

Likely yes. I guess it all depends if the compilation of older computer stuff you have lying around can represent a full computer. From there, you put an OS on it, likely a lightweight Linux, probably doesn't need to be a server, and then configure a media server application for it. You will have to rip all the CDs to binary media, and I'd say once you do that you should consider how to protect that data as you move forwards. Recommend you make it both wired Ethernet (to your router) and WiFi so that things like your tablets or other systems can access the services provided by it where you can play the music. Actually, I suppose the wired Ethernet would only be helpful if you were making the streams available outside of your local network, that suggestion may be overkill. Another enhancement might be to allow Bluetooth media access so that you can send the output to speakers, if you have ones which are BT capable.

To add to what rtmistler said, if you wind up loading Linux, I'd suggest looking into minidlna. Lightweight and easy to configure, so if you rip all your CD's down to MP3's and keep them in folders, minidlna will serve them up to your local network easily. Anything with a DLNA client can access them, so things like Clementine, Amarok, VLC, or even Roku's can play your music. Several DLNA clients for phones, too. Windows and Mac both have UPnP/DLNA media players as well.

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As above ideas and also I was thinking some sort of software like Kodi,Plex or Jellyfin that would scan directories and make them available in the software to play instead of using 200 icons on a desktop??

Thanks for the suggestions, It gives me some ideas to try. Ill mark this solved here in a couple days in case there are other ideas.

It'll take a long time to rip all the discs so it is best to do it right the first time and that would mean FLAC. The advantage there is CD-quality, lossless formatting along with the descriptive metadata. From there you can make MP3s for your earbuds but keeping the FLAC on file means you always have the "original", uncorrupted sound to work from.

The utility for ripping is Sound-Juicer and it can look up and automatically fill in the metadata for most discs.

Underneath, if you store on a homemade NAS, you could give strong consideration to OpenZFS and use RAID-Z1 or RAID-Z2. A big reason to consider OpenZFS these days is that it has file-level error correction. With a data set that size, some bits will flip eventually and it would be unnecessary to lose the file over that.

Yes. If the older system can handle a pair of larger drives (i.e. are there spare drive bays, spare data ports, or an empty slot for a disk controller), I'd configure a "largish" RAID1 device dedicated to the music files. I suggest the larger disk as I'd go with FLAC for the music files. They take up more space than MP3 but sound much, much better. You could go with an "md" device or a btrfs device. (I chose btrfs when I first set up my music device and, when I recently needed to expand it to hold more files, btrfs made that process a snap.) That older system would likely never break a sweat serving up music files via NFS. This has been working for me very well (~23.5K CD tracks and podcasts served up---at roughly 4300hrs worth, it takes a while before a song repeats) and I access it on my desktop with the sound card output funneled into a stereo with good speakers and via a Raspberry Pi hanging off another stereo in another room picking up the NFS filesystem via the household wifi. Any music player would do the trick; I went with Audacious.

HTH...