This post assumes you have installed CKEditor in Drupal as your HTML editor.

I've examined a lot of free web-based media managers.  Many don't work.  Many are hard to integrate.

Drupal has only one media manager (please correct me in the comments if I'm wrong).  It's called IMCE.  I don't know what IMCE stands for, but you can find out everything it does in the project's features list.

It also has a pretty cool user interface, as you can tell by the photo attached to this blog post.

To add IMCE, you'll need to do two things:

1. Install the module.
2. Turn it on in CKEditor.

After you've uploaded, unpacked and enabled the IMCE module, you're ready for the following steps:

1. Administer
2. Site configuration
3. CkEditor
4. Beside the profile you are using, click edit.
5. Open the File browser settings tab.
6. Under File browser type, select IMCE.

This is all you should need to do.  Return to any CKEditor window.  Click the link or image buttons and you're rewarded with a Browse Server button.

Voila.