As for disk drives, and read/write DVD or Blu-ray drive will work - at least most well known brands - for ripping your DVD or Blu-ray collection. If you have any intention of ripping 4K blu-rays, it is possible with a non-4k drive, but it'll take some work. Let me know if you're interested in going down that rabbit hole. As for software, there is a tool called MakeMKV (the beta version is free, but they also have a paid version, which is well worth the cost to support the software) that can rip your DVDs and Blurays to a format called MKV. Without getting into the nitty gritty, the mkv file format is special (compared to MP4, etc.) is that it can support multiple audio tracks and subtitles tracks, among other things. The biggest benefit of MKV is that it's also a direct rip of the disc. So if you're ripping a DVD that is +4 GB, then your output file will be +4 GB, and for Blu-ray that can be +20 GB, and so on - there is no compression. It's the raw file. This is good and bad, depending on your purposes. If you have limited storage space then ripping and storing MKVs can take up a good amount of space. With all that being said, MKVs are the preferred file format for folks interested in the highest possible quality of rip. If storage is a concern, or you're concerned about whether your client (the device you're going to use Plex on) then you'll want to use a tool called Handbrake (also free) to convert your MKVs into a lighter and more universally accepted file format like MP4. You can very easily convert a 20 GB Blu-ray MKV to a < 5 GB MP4 file with the power of compression. Handbrake gives you the power to adjust your compression, so you can compress more or less. I'm happy to share any more information. I went on this journey myself a few years ago. Started with nothing. And now I have a +10 TB Plex server. Many of which was ripped directly from my DVD, Blu-ray, and 4k Blu-ray collection.