Windows 10 hangs with large files on external drives

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Hi all,

I am having a very annoying issue and hoping someone can help me out here. I am running Windows 10 on an HP Spectre x360 laptop. I have a clean install of Win10 (and actually did a clean re-install when I started noticing this issue in case I was dealing with any OS corruption...but it made no difference.

Laptop Specs:
HP 13-4003dx (Spectre x360)
Windows 10
Intel i7-5500U
8GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics 5500

The issue is when I connect external drives with large files. I am using a USB 3.0 1tb Seagate BackupPlus drive (and I purchased a brand new one to rule out a drive issue). I am also using a USB 3.0 Lexar 256gb flash drive which also experiences the same issue.

The Seagate BackupPlus drive is Mac formatted (I use Mac Drive 10 to read/write) and the Lexar flash drive is Ex-FAT formatted.

I work in television and have to shuttle around show files, which are usually around 90-100gb video files. When I connect the drive containing the large files to the drive and then access the drive, the system hangs. The mouse won't move (it actually darts around the screen every few seconds or so when I move the mouse) and the system won't respond, although it doesn't say that anything is not running. I cannot CTRL-ALT-DEL or do anything else while the system is "thinking." If I wait several minutes (around 3-5 minutes), the system then goes right back to normal and then I can use it again, although it may hang again if I am still accessing the drives with large files. I have another Seagate USB 3.0 drive that is always connected via a dock - that drive does not contain large files and never experiences this problem. (That drive is NTFS formatted). I also don't have any issue with these other drives when connecting them to other systems to copy the large files onto them.

When the system hangs, if I disconnect the drive, it doesn't seem to make the system recover any faster - it still takes several minutes and then returns to normal.

I have noticed, though, that if File Explorer isn't open and I am not accessing the drive via any other programs, the system seems to work normally. It is only when I am accessing the drive via File Explorer or other programs I use to analyze or upload these files that I experience this hang.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to either diagnose or solve this problem? It gets very frustrating because I am using the computer for my work and having to wait many minutes for the system to respond is a problem.

Thank you in advance!!
 
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WD 1TB external drive NTFS format.
I haven't experienced any of the problems you describe. Could it be the Ex-Fat 32 formats? You mentioned your NTFS formatted drive work well with no lag.
 

Trouble

Noob Whisperer
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It may have something to do with the prefetch system or indexing / search, but......
As an experiment try changing an explorer setting to "Always show icons, never thumbnails" and see if that has any impact on how explorer behaves.

Thumbnails.JPG
 
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WD 1TB external drive NTFS format.
I haven't experienced any of the problems you describe. Could it be the Ex-Fat 32 formats? You mentioned your NTFS formatted drive work well with no lag.

One is Mac formatted, one is Ex-Fat, both exhibit the same problem. I could try reformatting one of them to NTFS and see if it causes the issue to try and rule out format type. I will let you know what happens. Thanks!
 
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It may have something to do with the prefetch system or indexing / search, but......
As an experiment try changing an explorer setting to "Always show icons, never thumbnails" and see if that has any impact on how explorer behaves.

View attachment 3082

I tried this and it still seemed to hang...perhaps for not as long before it recovered. I will try it again both ways and compare the length of time it takes to recover. Thanks!
 
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I believe if your HD is Ex-Fat then your external USB drive should be Ex-Fat. I now for sure that windows has a maximum partition size (4GB ?) for FAT 32, unsure, and not familiar with EX-Fat.
 

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