I got a new external crucial X8 usb 3.0 ssd and it reports a very large blocksize.
Unfortunately, it seems to make playing videos over the network with samba have problems. It may also be suboptimal using it on a usb 2.0 port.
blockdev --report
shows most drives have 256 sector readahead
RO RA SSZ BSZ StartSec Size Device
ro 256 512 1024 0 205111296 /dev/loop0
ro 256 512 1024 0 204873728 /dev/loop1
ro 256 512 1024 0 4096 /dev/loop2
ro 256 512 1024 0 157855744 /dev/loop3
however, my crucial ssd gets a giant 131072 readahead value. I believe this is what's causing the problems with the network drive sharing.
sudo blockdev --setra 16384 /dev/sdb
sets it to a much better value and I don't see the audio dropouts.
You can also check the value by getting the readahead for a specific drive.
blockdev --getra /dev/sdb
HITACHI HUS724040ALA640 4TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" HARD DRIVE ZERO HOURS
$52.00
WD 5TB Certified Refurbished Elements, External Hard Drive - RWDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN
$78.99
HGST Ultrastar DC HC520 12TB SATA 6Gb 256MB 3.5" Enterprise HDD- HUH721212ALE601
$82.99
Western Digital WD4000FYYZ RE 4TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
$24.08
HGST Ultrastar HE10 10TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 7200 3.5" Datacenter HDD - HUH721010ALE601
$79.99
Seagate ST12000NM0127 12TB 256MB 7200RPM 3.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Enterprise Hard Drive
$87.99
WD Ultrastar DC HC530 14TB SATA 6G 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise HDD - WUH721414ALE604
$110.00
HGST HDD HUH721010AL5200 10TB 3.5" SAS 12Gb/s Server Hard Disk Drive *READ
$50.89
Seagate ST12000NM0127 12TB SATA 6Gb/s 256MB 7200RPM 3.5" Enterprise Hard Drive
$99.99
Seagate ST8000NM0045 8TB 7.2k SATA 6Gbps 3.5" 4Kn Format Hard Drive Open Box New
$84.99