Windows 7, iTunes 10 and Seagate FreeAgant External Drive issues

Question

I'm having some serious problems with making the three mentioned above to go along with one another. The thing with my iTunes library is that it had started to take up some much of my PC's internal hard drive space that I decided to move it all to my Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 3TB external drive. The problem itself is that while syncing my iPhone with the contents on that drive, iTunes is, more often than not, non-responsive. It simply freezes up for longer periods of time. And when it unfreezes, it moves forward with the the syncing process for just a bit. Moreover, it's not only iTunes that freezes like this. The same thing happens with the external drive and even, which seems oddest to me, Safari. It all makes the syncing process extremely slow in regards of transferring files to or from my 32GB 3GS iPhone. For example, I have started syncing my iPhone some time after 10A.M. Right now it's nearly 4 P.M., and iTunes has optimized (and only optimized) 1,205 out of 8,303 photos. This is just a nightmare... :/ Worth mentioning here is that I keep all my photos and the iPod Photo Cache folder on the external drive as well.
I had heard that Windows 7 has some communication issues with various peripheral devices, and I am not sure whether this is the case or not. I'm also not sure whether this is a Windows 7-related problem only, or does iTunes contribute to it as well.
If anyone was able to help me resolve this problem, I would be really grateful

Answer 1

I must say it's a bit of a relief to know someone is in the very same situation and that one another can relate. Writing my previous post, I forgot about polydorus' question regarding any constant backup process running in the background, and so I can answer this question here: No, there are no backup processes running in the background. This question, however, made me wonder what else could be slowing the external drive/iTunes down. There is a Dashboard software related to this specific external drive which starts along with every system startup. I quit this software before starting the syncing process again (I got an electricity cut off during the previous syncing, so I simply had to start it all over again :/), and now iTunes doesn't show in the Task Manager as "Not Responding". At least it doesn't happen until another application turns non-responsive, when it does, iTunes and Safari turn non-responsive as well.
But even though iTunes shows as "Running" most of the time now, the syncing process is still as slow as h-e-l-l :/ I began this last syncing yesterday at 8:09P.M., and right now it's nearly 12:00P.M. :/ iTunes looks as if it was running, since the rotating arrows icon next to my iPhone name on the left pane don't stop, but iTunes stops from time to time, without going any further with optimizing photos - it looks as if it was waiting until it could access the external drive.
I don't know what else could be slowing everything down like this :/ Could it be iPhone itself, which slows down the communication between the PC and the external drive, because it's also connected to the USB port, taking up some of its bandwidth?
igbg: My driver is running on 6.1.7601.17514 drivers' version. Even if there is a newer version of these drivers (which, basing on your post, I guess wouldn't solve the problem :/), I can't update it now, while syncing
P.S. As for my music, I keep it on my D drive, and have no problems with playing it. It's only the whole rest (books, movies and photos) which is stored on the external drive