Bits are bits...no inherent difference in sound quality between internal and external drives.
The thing that matters with a disk (other than storage capacity) is how fast data can be retrieved when needed and whether data can be retrieved off the disk fast enough to keep the music playing without audible delays. Some disks are faster than others. An external drive storing just music files can be beneficial in that there is no disk access contention issues with other programs on the computer that must access the internal system drive in order for the computer to operate.
I use 2 Seagate multi Tb USB drives for my music files and disc speed is no issue.
Occasional defragmentation of the disk, internal or external especially as it starts to fill up, is beneficial in that this puts related bits onj the same part of the disk more and that helps read data faster.
Data retrieval from a wireless hard drive is inherently slower than a disk with a wired connection and this can become a factor. I'd consider newer wireless N technology for router and all networked devices that will intereact with a network storage drive probably before relying too heavily on wireless network drives alone.
The thing that matters with a disk (other than storage capacity) is how fast data can be retrieved when needed and whether data can be retrieved off the disk fast enough to keep the music playing without audible delays. Some disks are faster than others. An external drive storing just music files can be beneficial in that there is no disk access contention issues with other programs on the computer that must access the internal system drive in order for the computer to operate.
I use 2 Seagate multi Tb USB drives for my music files and disc speed is no issue.
Occasional defragmentation of the disk, internal or external especially as it starts to fill up, is beneficial in that this puts related bits onj the same part of the disk more and that helps read data faster.
Data retrieval from a wireless hard drive is inherently slower than a disk with a wired connection and this can become a factor. I'd consider newer wireless N technology for router and all networked devices that will intereact with a network storage drive probably before relying too heavily on wireless network drives alone.