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Isn’t the Samsung QVO an internal drive? I need an external one.
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@stievus fair question. The difference between an external drive and an internal drive is generally that an external drive is sealed inside a case that converts SATA or NVME to USB, whereas with an “internal” drive you select one of many empty 2.5” SATA or M.2 drive cases (or open connectors) that contains the chipset to convert the same. Only difference being an external drive is generally not separable from the case it’s built into and you can’t always be sure which version of a manufacturer’s drive is inside said case.
QVO is Samsung’s space/cost efficient version that can work as an internal or external drive. I mentioned it because it was already discussed in this thread.
I would imagine most every streamer will be using USB 2.0 protocol as that’s standard for audio. Higher version chipsets should be backwards-convertible, but you may need to change the USB cable accordingly as there can apparently be difference in protocol there (depending on the device receiving the data).
USB 3.2 is overkill for audio if used with high speed drives and in such use can produce an unnecessary amount of heat; consequently, I have no experience using USB 3.2 drives for audio purposes - they aren’t designed for such “light lifting.”
USB 3.0 external cases + 2.5” SATA drives have usually worked fine for me (into various USB 2.0-spec’ed audio devices), but that doesn’t mean all converter chipsets will be compatible (I did have an issue with a Unitek open-style SATA-to-USB 3.0 converter into a USB 2.0 device once; it was a powered adapter so that may have been an issue) - YMMV.
Whether external drives or external cases for internal drives, best to use something that is bus-powered by the streamer.
I would not recommend a USB 2.0 external drive as these will all be HDD’s and sacrifice the benefits of an SSD.
If you use a SSD for backup, it is probably a good idea to power it up periodically, given the concern over data integrity if stored at length in unpowered drives of this format.