Watching from USB HDD weird interrupts..

The copy process to the HDD over the LAN achieves a speed of 100Mbps
Read achieves a bit more, 140-160Mbps

The external USB HDD is in an icebox, which lights up "blue" when there's reading/writing from the disk.

While copying, the blue light is blinking non-stop and the copy/read/write is without issues.

When playing a movie file from the USB, using VLC, a 6Mbps stream, far below the 100-160Mbps which I achieve by reading/writing, it reads for 10-20 seconds..blinking blue light.. then it stops for a while .. the movie is playing..

at some point, after the blue blinking light hasn't lit up for 30-40 seconds, they light up again.. exactly at this moment when they light up, the play of VLC is halted.. waiting a few seconds.. and then continues for another 30-40seconds..


So each time the file is being played by VLC.. blue blinking light off..
after 30-40 seconds the blue blinking light goes on, and VLC is halted for a few seconds..

then the blinking light goes off, and VLC continues the movie...

any idea what setting might cause this?


"Disk spindown idle time (in seconds)
0 = disable feature"

This setting is set to 0.. so no spin downs