USB DRIVE best practice

I bought a new 500GB usb drive to let me record and store epg files, but then found that when I tried to record to it everything seemed to stutter and jump on playback. I then tried different firmware images and finally got it working on an OPENA.TV image. I don't think my problem is image related but more the way that I mounted and formatted the drive. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what the best way to add a new drive would be. The drive was NTFS if that makes any difference. I tried all sorts of things in an attempt to get it working and now have no idea what I actually did to get it working.

Thanks

Bus powered and I did format it via the box eventually, so that might be what sorted it. Initially I was just trying to mount it I also found that some images did not like ntfs so had to install a driver first before I could mount it. I will have to unplug it and see if I can see what format it is on my PC.

Thanks