a survival game kept freezing every few seconds, so i alt-tabbed mid-stutter and opened Task Manager. this is what i saw:

Disk 0 (C:) Active time 100%
Not responding
Disk pinned at 100%. The game is on an external USB drive. CPU and GPU are nearly idle while it happens. Is my drive dying, or is something in the background hammering it?
it doesnt happen every session, which makes it extra annoying to troubleshoot, some evenings are perfectly smooth... others are unplayalbe within minutes. id love to understand why.
