I have had a Dell laptop, quad core I7, 16 gigs of RAM, 1 tb internal disk drive, 4 tb external disk drive (to store AIFF files from recording CDs on iTunes, plus hi-res AIFF files purchased from HD Tracks), USB out to my DAC. A few months ago I started a subscription to Roon, whose "core" runs on the Dell, iPad app to control.
I purchased a dedicated music server a few years ago, don't use it anymore.
I purchased a dedicated music server a few years ago, don't use it anymore.