During playback a digital to analog conversion takes place. The data is intact but the cable connecting your streamer to the dac is susceptible to emi and rfi that become part of the analog signal carrying digital information. This introduces noise and in addition to that you have jitter that the dac needs to handle and separate data from garbage which impacts sound quality.
You don’t have that same issue when moving data from drive to drive. Just use decent cable and keep the laptop and the drives away from noise/interference makers just to be safe. That’s how I do it. If using a better usb cable gives you a piece of mind, by all means go for it.