Apple music occasionally pauses playback for about 1/2 second
Mac Mini M1 os 11.6.4 Big Sur Library is on an external WD My Passport 4 tb (not ssd) USB A to USB C
The drive has a partition. 1 TB is for the music and the rest is for Time Machine back up.
Every so often the sound will cut out for about 1/2 second and come right back.
Time Machine isn't doing anything when this happens. I know using an SSD would be better, but could that really what's causing this? I've used an external for storing the music library before on a Macbook Pro probably 12 years ago and don't recall having any problem. I can't really tell if this is pausing or muting the audio because it happens and its over so quickly. There isn't any spinning beachball or anything else.
Mac mini, macOS 10.15