External Storage Formatted In NTFS?

I have an external drive that does backups of files for me on a weekly basis through windows, needless to say the backup was getting bigger so I decided to go for a better data storage solution and formatted the external into NTFS. While doing this I also decided to format a USB key into NTFS.THE external drive format took hours, four or so hooked up via firewire. I blamed the issue on the drive and ignored it for the next couple of weeks. The backups didn't work properly they stopped halfway according to Windows even if I let them run 12+ HOURS. Before I formatted it took only 2-3 hours for the backup. I blamed the entire issue on the drive, maybe time to replace it, but I didn't have time to mess with it cause it was simply annoying me.Didn't use the key until tonight. Remember it is formatted as NTFS also. I started to copy a movie file to it, 700mb, it stopped at nearly 89% with 5 seconds left and did not move one bit. I hit cancel and it stayed on the cancel screen for 10 minutes with no resolve. At this point I tried to open a firefox window and it was not responding.......so what did I do I pulled the key and just like that Firefox window popped up and all was well. At that point it hit me, but the external storage solutions are NTFS, could it be my Mobo? Surely not!, Oh Microsoft you make me sad again....Just like with Vista. I reformatted the USB key back to FAT32, transferred a larger 1.4gig file in about 2-3 minutes and had no hangup issues. I can't blame the issue on the mobo especially since it relates to both USB 2.0 connection and the FireWire has the same issue. I guess windows 7 64bit doesn't like external NTFS connections. My windows appears up to date!