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Actually, there is a way to reduce the drag of an externally mounted mirror, if your willing to perform some 'body work' on it.
20 years ago, there was an excellent article on aerodynamics in Cycle magazine. The article talked about the importance of reducing drag on most 'shapes' by making sure the length was about 4 times the width.
Now with this in mind, take a look at most automotive mirrors. Take a birds eye view of the mirror. Notice how 'short' the mirror is relative to it's width?
My son's 1999 Chevy Camaro has external mirror 'extenders' that effectively make the mirror much longer than it's width, and thus reduces the drag for a given frontal area.
Another 'tweak' to improve the situation, is to make sure that the trailing edge of the mirror body is smaller than the mid-section. This ensures that the contrails are closing in on each other as the air passes by the end of the mirror body.
I actually made a 'mirror body extender' many years ago. It was quite strange looking in appearance compared to our 'modern' mirrors...
Jim.
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