Problems playing back video files on external HD

[aloot]

I bought this 8 TB Seagate External HD.

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-External-STEB8000100/dp/B01HAPGEIE/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1487979264&sr=1-1&keywords=8+tb+external+hard+drive

I transferred a lot of video files to it. (MP3s made with Nvidia Shadowplay mostly) When I go to play the videos back directly off the HD they stutter and freeze. Yet if I transfer said videos back to the C drive, they play fine. So the data has not been corrupted.

Any ideas?

 

[getochkn]

ARe you using it over a USB 3.0 connection?

 

[Solandri]

Likely, all you have to do is defragment the external drive.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/how-defrag-in-windows-7-8-10-3493358/

When you copy lots of small files like MP3s to a drive, they can end up scattered all over the surface. When you then copy a movie file, it's too big to fit in one continuous space. So it ends up fragmented - a little piece here, a little piece there. When you play back the movie, the hard drive needs to move the read/write heads all over to read these scattered pieces. Unfortunately, hard drives are very slow at this type of reading (1 MB/s or slower). The end result can be stuttering and freezing.

 

[getochkn]

I don't think they meant MP3 as they said video, so I think they meant MPG. They are probably uncompressed full bandwidth videos that in their current state, the HD doesn't have the bandwidth to play.

 

[aloot]

Sorry, I meant MP4. And yes, it's USB 3.0. What's odd is that I have another 4TB HD that doesn't suffer from the same problems. It's brand new, so defragging it seems ludicrous. Besides, Windows 10 is set up to do that automatically. I tried some different USB ports on my rig, and at first it seemed that maybe the one port I used was bad, but now it seems no matter which port I use, the problem persists.

 

[getochkn]

Could be a 5400RPM drive vs a 7200RPM drive?

 

[aloot]

Even if it is 5400 vs 7200, that shouldn't make it freeze up with USB 3.0

EDIT: I plugged it into another rear USB port. It seems to be running fine now. I have no idea why either. We'll see after some more testing. But what's odd is that all the rear ports are 3.0 and are identical. None are defective either. I can plug any other USB device into all the ports and they will work fine. This HD just seems to have an affinity for this one port. lol