Whether the music files are stored on an external flash drive or an external usb or firewire hard drive has no relation to how the music is communicated from the computer to your dac. In each case, the computer has to read the music file from the external drive, process it through its internal circuits, and then send it out via whatever output you have connected to the dac (spdif, usb, etc.).
As long as your computer is reasonably modern and not handicapped by too much garbage software running in the background, it should be able to handle this without any intermittent breakups or other problems. Given that, there should be no sonic difference resulting from what medium the music files are stored on.
Regards,
-- Al
As long as your computer is reasonably modern and not handicapped by too much garbage software running in the background, it should be able to handle this without any intermittent breakups or other problems. Given that, there should be no sonic difference resulting from what medium the music files are stored on.
Regards,
-- Al