CDs are fine things for listening to and archiving, but they’re bulky. Think of all the shelf space you could free up if that digital music resided on one little hard drive rather than hundreds of boxed-up plastic discs. It’s a commitment, but putting all your music on a computer has advantages besides space savings.
First and foremost, building a media server gives you access to all of your tunes from anywhere in your house. You’ll be able to search for songs and play them back whether you’re in your kitchen, living room or your home office, regardless of where in your home your media server sits. If you’re extra savvy, you can also set up your server to be accessible over the internet.
Wherever you access your music, it can all be indexed and sorted, shuffled and mixed, shared, streamed, and more.
Link: Wired