Sata -vs- IDE -vs- USB -vs- Firewire

[foodfightr]

Ok so this has been bugging me for some time now... Can someone give me some kind of side by side comparison of the speeds possible on each medium?

Also, it looks like USB 2.0 ranges from 1.5 to 400mb, will an external hard drive function at 400mb with this cable, or is the drive itself not capable of this speed?

 

[bob4432]

newer gen 7200rpm ide hdds have a limit of ~55-60MB/s str, 1394(firewire) is 400Mb/s which = ~50MB/s. 10,000rpm 74GB raptors are a little higher. it will be pretty close, and i would choose 1394 over usb 2 for a hdd.

and to also answer your question, the fastest single hdds are the newest gen 15krpm u320 scsi hdds with a str of 80-90MB/s str

 

[BurnItDwn]

SATA & PATA both allow MUCH more bandwidth then the fastest drives can use.

U320 > U160 > SATA > PATA > FW ~ USB2 > USB1.1 >>>>>>>> Floppy Disk

Though Generally USB2, Firewire, PATA, and SATA offer MUCH more bandwidth then most drives make, so you really won't notice too much of a real world difference.