by Willen » Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:24 am
eSATA > FireWire 800 > FireWire 400 > USB 2.0 > USB 1.1
And for some older systems (mainly Apples) you have SCSI, which is found more often used with professional servers and workstations. Also used is Fibre Channel and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), not to mention Networked Attached Storage (NAS) which isn't really an external drive but a file server (which can itself be connected to external drives) but provides similar functions.
USB 2.0 (aka. Hi-Speed USB) can have speeds vary quite wildly. I have a memory card reader/floppy disk drive combo unit, a portable memory card reader that plugs directly into a USB port (no cable needed), and of course my digital camera (Sony DSC-V3). All of them are USB 2.0 High Speed devices, but reading the same Memory Stick, the camera is the fastest, followed by the plug-in card reader, with the built-in combo floppy/media reader bringing up the rear.
Even different computers can have different results due to the type of chipset/controller that is used, the drivers installed, and other design factors. It's possible that on the same computer, you might get better transfer speeds from certain USB ports than others due to them using a better USB controller. Many older motherboards had USB 1.1 built-in with the board's chipset and USB 2.0 added on with a secondary chip. Usually Windows XP will warn you if your USB 2.0 device is plugged into a USB 1.1 port.
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