I'm confused by your post. Is the issue only when accessing the external drive or do you have the issue with the internal drive as well?
What file system is being used on the external drive? If it is NTFS, then you may need to update the manufacturer's proprietary software & driver as the current software/driver may not be fully compatible with Ventura.
Disconnect all other external devices in case one of them is interfering.
Make sure the external drive is connected directly to the Mac.
Have you restarted the Mac to see if that helps?
Also try booting into Safe Mode to see if things improve since this will prevent third party software from automatically launching during boot & login. However, Safe Mode will prevent writing to an NTFS volume since the third party driver will be disabled. If you are running any anti-virus software, cleaning/optimizer apps, or third party security software, then uninstall them by following the developer's instructions. These types of apps are not needed on a Mac and usually cause more problems than they solve, plus they impact system performance.