[Deadmarsh]

Originally Posted by Datahound

The SSD settings for sparse file, part file, and pre-allocation in that Reddit post do place more load on the drive. It you have plenty of space, do not use those settings (use the spinning disk settings). It's intended to conserve space on a small 400GB or 480GB SSD when uTorrent is configured with a download temp folder.

Are you using a local (not network) dedicated drive for the downloads folder? If not, this is a possible cause. uTorrent 2.2.1 doesn't share disk I/O well. If you have a dedicated consumer SSD or mechanical spinning drive, get an enterprise 400GB MLC SSD for $25-$30 from eBay (Intel DC S3700 or newer). Plug it into a motherboard SATA port. Configure a download temp folder.

I can attest that the drive handles 950 simultaneously transferring downloads (combined total around 35MBytes/sec) over IVPN and uTorrent remains responsive. Note you need a lot of CPU for that many- I saw a max of 85% usage on a Core2Duo (stock HP DC7900 with Win 7 x64). CPU starvation could also cause stability issues in theory (not really an issue with any modern processor).

Anything that bottlenecks disk I/O could cause freezing. SATA chipset, driver used for it, noise (bad cables/connectors, power supply), faulty AHCI implementation- there were a lot, Intel shipped millions of bad chipsets/drivers with AHCI as the default.. the DC7900 was one. Works fine in legacy IDE mode (they released drivers like 5 years later that fixed the AHCI issues but I didn't try them).

For pre-2014 motherboard SATA ports, I avoid AHCI and use legacy IDE mode. The speed difference with SSDs is not significant. Even with spinning drives, it's not worth the risk. However, any motherboard made in the last 9 years is probably ok, but like I said, you won't notice any speed difference with a SSD.

Most of my boxes use 3Ware or LSI RAID for the bulk storage which I'm guessing is using AHCI since NCQ is supported.

Another solution is to slow it down. Set global rate limits like under 4MBytes/sec. Disable UTP. Lower the number of connections per torrent. Rate limit on a per torrent basis. This is a pain, but it's how I'm able to use uTorrent on a virtual machine writing to a network drive (I have valid reasons for such a config; plus it gets very little use). Limit the number of active torrents.

The first time occurred when I wasn't even downloading anything. Not using the SSD settings. No local network. Downloading to a spinning drive. Client itself is on an SSD. If this happens again I'll just undo these changes as I had zero issues before.