just a couple of points that might or not be relevent to this thread.
1. computer power supply.
lets backtrack a tad.
originally personal computers were sold on the concept in the past few years
of the magic marketing phrase "plug n play".
more like "plug n hope"..lol.
heres what i'm finding with many friends pc's etc etc.
originally when they got their systems mostly everything was fine because the systems
were lightly loaded. mebe just a simple one drive system.
but over the past few years many people have added all sorts of peripherals n stuff
to their systems. some daw systems now might have multiple drives, usb dongles
for some software (i stay away from such.) , and lots of other doodads.
it all starts to add up mates. for some users the system is their complete and sometimes
complex not just music creation center but entertainment center.
given the above, the question arises can the original el cheapo power supply keep up. ??
in summary many pc's started off simply...but now are supporting lots of doodads.
ive seen it many times with friends systems...the original factory installed power supply
which was prolly chosen to keep the pc retail price down by the manufacturer might be under strain.
2. lets talk outboard usb drives.
some info.

if you go into any reatail store youll see various brand name drives in an enclosure with such names as freeagent//mybook n lots of other names.
but it seems some people often have probs with them.
after much testing i personally prefer takeing regular desktop drives and putting em in a 40 buk enclosure by acomdata for example.
ive had zero probs with this approach.
thus ..were i to go the pg usb drive sapproach...for safety i would prolly copy the contents immediately to
a desktop drive in an enclosure and run off that.
and prolly do an added copy to another usb drive.
the acomdata enclosures just have 2 chords.
one for usb and one for power. ive found them nice n easy and never a problem myself.
ymmv etc //do your own testing.
might i suggest as an option pg consider useing regular desktop drives in an enclosure ...
thus negatiting the xy chord biz ??


retired puter engr....powertracks on amd......NICE !
"what is the black art of audio engineering ?"
my silly songs...motagator.com/bmanning
see my tips in the tips section.