Its easier for me to simply rip music to my Toshiba notebook’s built-in hard drive initially.
Then copy to external USB drive. But if I do this in this manner, is there an accuracy/jitter problem with the copy on the external USB drive?
Post like these are common.
Digital audio is complex but sometimes it is just like vinyl.
If you move a record from one shelve to another, will this affect the content?
Likewise you can move a digital audio file from one HD to another without changing the content.
If you play an LP why do you play it at 33 rpm?
Well it is written on the sleeve to do so.
If you play a 16 bits / 44.1 kHz audio file it will be played at 44.1 kHz.
This is simply written in the header of the file.
But what about the jitter?
If you play a record there will be wow & flutter.
This is not a property of the record but a property of the turntable.
Likewise there will be small variations in the time step (jitter) when playing digital audio.
This is not a property of the file but a property of the clock driving the DA conversion.
An audio file is what it is, just a file.
You can edit it, copy it, tag it, etc. but only when it is converted to analog jitter is of relevance.
Rule of the thumb: jitter only matters when somebody is listening.
Only the paranoid survive so is this completely true?
No, flaky PC memory can corrupt data.
This might go unnoticed for some time.
It is a good strategy to have a backup of your audio.
It is even better to have an old backup because it might take some time before you notice your files are corrupt.