I think the option in Hijack only disables periodic checking. The ext2 filesystem can remember how long it was since it was last checked. There is a setting to disable this (or at least make it super long) in the file system.

Probably most of your file system checking is due to unclean mounting of the drive (resetting while in read/write mode). I don't think Hijack can stop this.

However, that said, I rarely do reboots while in read/write mode and I still get disk checking happening most times I add new tunes. This is generally spaced by weeks, so in my case it's possible the Hijack function isn't working properly for me. I haven't really bothered to check since I usually sync at work or overnight, where I can walk away and it can take basically as long as it wants.

As for the speed, I notice it Roger's drive guide, one of the options specifies "sparse superblock" to help speed up fscks. I can differentiate betweent the two drives fscking in jemplode, and one of them is significantly faster than the other possibly due to it being set up manually whereas the other was done by the disk builder. I've been meaning to format the other drive similarly in hopes of speeding up the fsck.

Not really sure how that helps you though with it freezing during a sync. Put a serial cable on it during the sync to see if there are any drive errors appearing.