@Tony I have parental controls enabled.

It's not so much that it stalls, it's more that the router firmware seems to crash. Once it's gone down, I can't join the Wi-Fi network, nor access the Web UI. Only NAT packet routing keeps working.

Is there a limit on the power you can draw from the USB 3.0 port? I was using a external 2.5" USB 3.0 drive, which should in theory be under the 900mA limit (but I've never checked, to be honest).

I tried again with a 16GB USB flash drive, formatted FAT32, and copied the files from a Windows 10 machine. This time only the Windows Filesharing part died, meaning \\192.168.0.1 just gave an error. The Web UI and FTP function still works though.

@thejpster 

If the external drive has a power supply that would be recommended to use, like you mentioned the port can only provide so much power.

What was the error the computer got?

@Tony Same thing happening with me, just bought an Archer C7 recently. Trying to use the router usb function as a backup drive over the network. The router crashes randomly after a while when copying / synchronizing files/folders. SMB or FTP, doesn't matter, crashes with both methods. Happens with simple copy operations too. Latest firmware didn't help. The connected drive is a 2TB NTFS hard drive in an enclosure with external power supply. Pretty pathetic, that even a simple thing as this, cannot work reliably when it is a TP-Link product. Im angry, considering the main reasons why I bought this router is this very function. Didn't ask for anything fancy at all, just some port redirects and this. Trying to fix this problem wasted a good amount of my time of the day, without solution at the end.

@lajoosh  did you get anywhere with this?  I am having the exact same issue with a 4TB USB 3.0 drive... I get about 50GB copied to it and then the router freezes.  It comes back on it's own, but the backup fails in the process.

@Rofo my backup copy gets a bit further using FTP, but then eventually fails as well.... this is so frustrating 

@Frogan 

What is the ROUTER model? F/W version on it?

How are you copying files over to the drive? What OS are you using?

Is the Drive formatted in NTFS or something else?

Is the External drive Portable or Self-powered?

How are you connected to the router, wired or wireless?

@IrvSp 

What is the ROUTER model? F/W version on it? - 

Firmware Version:

1.0.4 Build 20210717 rel.62921(5553)

Hardware Version:

Archer AX73 v1.0

How are you copying files over to the drive? What OS are you using?

Mapped drive in Windows 10 Build 19042

FTP as well, both failing at random times during the file copy.  The file is a single backup file.  Sometimes, rarely, the copy finishes if the file is ~175 GB,  but it usually fails.  anything bigger than that usually instantly fails when "calculating", then commencing  in Windows 10.

Is the Drive formatted in NTFS or something else?

NTFS

Is the External drive Portable or Self-powered?

It is a Seagate Expansion Desktop STEB4000100 USB 3.0 with it's own power supply

How are you connected to the router, wired or wireless?

Workstation is connected Wifi 6 using a Gigabyte GC-Wbax200 2x2 802.11Ax Dual Band WiFi + Bluetooth 5 PCIe Expansion Card

@Frogan 

OK, that info helps.

Portable External drives can be a problem, but that is not your case.

Using Windows as well, and mapping the drive. I assume you've used NET USE to do that or have used Windows Explorer to open the router, get to the share and then using the mouse Right Mouse Button menu map the drive that way. Then use a CMD prompt to copy the data.

I use a program called Explorer++ to do my copies and have not had a problem, not on W10, and now on W11.

That program I found easier to use, but you can do the same with Windows Explorer too. Just select VIEW and then SHOW and then the NAVIGATION PANE. Then just on the left Navigation Pane expand the router to show the router share folder you want to copy to, and then using the Navigation Pane click on the folder on the PC where the file you want to copy from is. Hold the LEFT MOUSE BUTTON down on the file and drag it to the left Navigation Pane to the Router locate and release the mouse button. Then select COPY.

Does this work better (I don't think it should, but give it a try anyway).

The only other thing I can think of is the External Drive itself. It might need CHKDSK run on it? You can't do that to a Shared/Mapped drive so you'll need to bring it to the PC to do that. I'm not 100% sure, but I do recall having some 'odd' problems with the network drive once and that fixed it. Worth a try.

While the drive is on your PC, try the COPY there as well to rule out the drive or data file as the problem.