Torrent switches from active to inactive and then back again...

[oleg9999]

Any torrent I try to download gets off at high speed and then after 10-15 seconds goes from active to inactive. It stays inactive for 30-60 seconds, then goes back to active with another burst of a download, and then goes to inactive again. What is wrong here?

I checked my ISP for traffic shaping - none.
Port forwarding on my Time Capsule is set up. NAT status is OK/green. The torrents, when downloading, have green face next to them, indicating no connection problems.
 

[parg]

Are you saving the torrent files to an external / USB drive? I've seen this behaviour when flushing data to disk blocks network IO

[oleg9999]

Are you saving the torrent files to an external / USB drive? I've seen this behaviour when flushing data to disk blocks network IO

 

Excellent insight! This was indeed the problem. Thanks!