Which external SSD for music streaming?

The Samsung professional series is very good , crucial is decent all name brands 

are plenty fast enough. One thing I highly recommend get rid of the stock cable it comes with  I replaced them sonically they have far better conductors and isolation 

and after 75-100 hours of cable runin. Sound superior ,I would buy one before ripping anything for packet noise is Jitter ,at our audio club proved this , if you can  find a name brand Audio quest, or wire world , if not even a $15 cable on Amazon 

is night and day better built.

@audioman58 You mean the USB cable from SSD to streamer?

I too recommend a known brand-but-cheaper format of SSD (“longevity” generally relates to rewrite-ability of a drive before it risks corruption/failure and so as already mentioned, won’t apply to a read-only drive for a CD collection) e.g. QVO Samsung. For sake of comparison, Samsung’s EVO and PRO options are unnecessary in your case as the benefits relate to rewrite-ability (not applicable to a read-only drive) and read/write speed (only important for heavy tasks on a traditional computer, although moving a large music collection onto said drive may show you a one-time slight uptick in convenience; hardly worth the additional premium IMO).

I suggest you disregard recommendation for “upgrading” the USB cable between external drive and streamer. There is no evidence of these being a bottleneck for sound quality, and notice how there is never mention of any SATA-to-USB or NVME-to-USB adapter chipset being the compromise in that part of the “chain” since apparently no hifi company offers a bespoke external USB case (yet…?). Money more effectively spent on more drive storage capacity.

It is generally recommended to back up a SSD’s data on a traditional HDD (instead of an identical SSD) - magnetic (HDD) drives have more reliable lifespans when unplugged/unpowered for long periods. That said, I’ve had large capacity SSD’s (4 & 8 TB) show no signs of data corruption after 2+ years unpowered. YMMV, of course.

Isn't the Samsung QVO an internal drive? I need an external one. Following your advices, brand/no need for speed, the Crucial X6 would be a good option, I think.

What kind of USB protocol does your streamer use? Is it 2.0 or 3.0 or 3.2? I would confirm what USB protocol the streamer uses and check that against the SSD drive you intend to buy.

I made the mistake of buying a Samsung external SSD that uses the USB 3.2 protocol and my Cambridge CXN V2 uses a 2.0 protocol which meant it couldn't read the SSD. So I ended up getting a 2TB HDD and instead use that as my primary drive for my digital collection. The portable SSD is my back-up drive so if something happens I won't lose all my music.