LinuxQuestions.org - Random read hangs with USB-HDD

Hi,
I've got a problem with my Maxtor 500GB USB2.0 external harddrive containing one big ReiserFS partition. This drive is fixed, so I can only attach it via USB. Power is pulled from an external brick.

Writing to this disk does not pose any problems. Reading however results in strange behavior.
After I copied a few hundred MB, sometimes a few ten MB or even GB off it, copying completely stops for almost exactly 60 seconds only to resume again afterwards. It just sits there fiddling thumbs and waiting for a timeout of some kind (presumably).
<data(random duration)> - <60 sec pause> - <data(random duration)> - <60 sec pause> etc.

This causes a few services like Samba to time out, making copying off that drive from another PC a pain in the butt.

My board is an Asus A7V333-X using the latest BIOS with the device attached to this onboard USB controller

Code:

#lspci

00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)

The harddrive:

Code:

#lsusb

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0d49:3200 Maxtor

I'm using Gentoo running on the 2.6.23-gentoo-r3 kernel. 2.6.22-gentoo-r8, which I used before, displayed the same issue.

This device is said to work flawlessly (See here and here)

This comes up regarding this disk during boot

Code:

#dmesg

scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access    Maxtor  3200            0344 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors (500108 MB)

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] Write Protect is off

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] Mode Sense: 17 00 00 00

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors (500108 MB)

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] Write Protect is off

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] Mode Sense: 17 00 00 00

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through

 sdg: sdg1

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdg] Attached SCSI disk

and during mount

Code:

#dmesg

ReiserFS: sdg1: found reiserfs format "3.6" with standard journal

ReiserFS: sdg1: using ordered data mode

ReiserFS: sdg1: journal params: device sdg1, size 8192, journal first block 18, max trans len 1024, max batch 900, max commit age 30, max trans age 30

ReiserFS: sdg1: checking transaction log (sdg1)

ReiserFS: sdg1: Using r5 hash to sort names

These messages pop up at the beginning and end of the 60 sec period:

Code:

#dmesg

usb 1-6: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4

I searched for that error on different forums/Google. I found others having the same problem. Many suggested to do this

Code:

echo 64 >/sys/block/sdg/device/max_sectors

I did to no avail. Other values didn't work either
Another suggestion was to mount the drive using the sync option. This also did not work for me

Any ideas?