Hardwired. Like I said, it streams perfectly from another PC on the network as well as from other drives (I've now tried three.) on my editing PC. I suspect it's time for a drive replacement.

Download the manufacturer's utility to read SMART data and check the drive functionality. (Data Lifeguard Tools, Seatools, Drive Fitness Test, etc.)

Check the Windows Event Log to see if a SMART error popped.

Reseat or replace the SATA cable for that device.

Reseat or replace the SATA power connector for that device.

Swap the SATA cable to another port on the motherboard to diagnose a port or drive failure.

Check whether Windows is indexing the drive.

In no particular order.

It's very unlikely to be a fragmentation problem. Considering that even the cheapest modern drives can sustain 150 to 600MBps (1200 to 4800Mbps) and streaming video is usually less than 30Mbps, your drive could be so horribly fragmented that the surface map looks like confetti and spend 95 to 99% of it's time seeking and still be able to deliver the video in real time.

As drives age the calibration of the head arm can get off due to wearing out of the electromagnet coils. When this happens the drive can do a recalibration run, which involves moving the heads all the way to the inside of the disk, then back to the outside, then back in again, in carefully calculated steps. Even though this only takes a few seconds it could still be long enough for the buffers to empty. There's not much you can do about it. WesternDigital used to have a utility that would re-low-level format the drive so that the tracks line up with the arm's new moment sizes. Of course, this also completely wipes the drive. You can also end up with a drive that now holds less than the rated size, or perhaps even more, but less reliably so. I recall using this with very good results on a few aging drives 15 or 20 years ago. I don't know if it's still available, but it was part of the Data Lifeguard tools on the CD that came with the drives. Gibson's SpinRite can achieve something similar, though through different methods.

Realistically though, if the drive is showing that much age it probably won't be long before other errors arise. A few physically bad blocks can cause the drive to pause while it analyzes them and relocates the data, but this should be a one-time event for each bad block as the drive learns to never try reading there again. That this would be a regular 10-minute occurrence is unlikely, but as more blocks go bad the process snowballs until you have a mostly dead drive. With drive prices so cheap now it's probably better to replace rather than to try repairing.

Some hard drives just stall over a network.
I had a WD MyBook that did this, so it was useless as a media drive.
Hook it in with USB instead of on a network, and it runs just dandy.

Run chkdsk /R from an admin command prompt

Next would try the cable replacement or swap cables with a another device for a test.

Use a utility like Speccy to look at the drive interfacing and verify it is operating at max interface speed. If not, the drive might be renegotiating speed during the drop, which to me would say bad cable or controller fail.

As someone my have pointed out earlier, the drop may also be the drive re-calibrating for failure reasons.

I've had the worst problems with SATA cables. Here in lightning alley, we just had a storm/power outage last night, and my main backup server started throwing controller errors on the C: drive. Happens at least once a year around here on at least one drive. Found a new, unused SATA cable and bingo, let me repair it, triple checked everything, and no more errors.

I'm going to buy a bunch of the best (for the price) SATA cables and make it a point to replace all of them every year. Any recommendations appreciated.

So I would check windows event logs, SMART utility checks, and replace the cable with a brand new one before replacing the drive.

Thanks for the suggestions. Nothing in the Windows Event logger. Using Speedfan, I checked the SMART readings. OK except there are 13 re-allocated sectors. Made sure the cables were tight, although I have yet to swap them around. I've got an Antec case with the PS sitting on the bottom along with one of the hard drive cages--the one where the drive is located. My plan is to remove the drive and try it in one of my external hot swap cages that is known to work. I suspect that the drive is simply beginning to fail and is in need of replacement. Again, thanks.

wwaag