Comment 10 for bug 703517

Could you possibly attach the old version of '.recently-used.xbel' which slowed down Inkscape with the external drive connected? Or - if you do have privacy concerns - inspect the file yourself for any clues what could be causing the slow-down?

This file could be shared with other applications based on the GTK+ toolkit (e.g. GIMP). It's format is XML-based and can be viewed/edited with any plain-text editor. Possibly there are either many currently existing files from the external drive listed, or files that no longer exist on the drive.