speed of external SATA connector v. firewire 1394b

[LtPage1]

Is the speed of my PC Card (Type II) slot going to be a limiting factor on how much faster a direct SATA connection would be over a Firewire 800 connection for a hard drive?

Also- would the SATA connection be a waste if the drive itself is actually an IDE HDD? thanks.

 

[tiap]

The card will be faster. It is a direct connection to the bus.