We walked uphill both ways.

Does PipePipe allow the user to log into their Google account, though?

Other responses have covered the “not without being logged into Google” part, so I’ll just add that if you don’t care about being logged into Google and the thing you want from a front end is Sponsor Block, then yes: YouTube in a browser with the Sponsor Block extension. On Android, the YouTube app w/ Revanced accomplishes the same thing.

How do I know if I’m using sata 3.2/3.3 vs something else?

I have one of these in the 8 TB variant that I use for backup purposes, and I plug it into one of those USB docks, like this one. I have not applied any tape or adaptors and it seems to be working fine.

Check out this article from December about using sponsor block with yt-dlp.