I had mine connected all the time but now it's on a seagate drive instead of the usual western digital it drops out now and then and each time you need to go in the settings and set the folders back to the external drive.
Hi Pipeline, did you try in USB hub settings to disable power management?
Laptops often give problems due lack of more than one USB controller chip.
You could remove unused USB device drivers with USB deview. a very handy tool.
And yes, the formerly used USB 3.0 WD My passport harddisks from PGmusic drives were 2 classes better than the newer stuff.
The seagate model they sent last December i wouldn't dare to buy for my own use.