ATA-6 is 100 MBps, Maxtor claimed 133 MBps with their controller & drive. Something I don't understand about hard drive interfaces, particularly external ones; what is this with the claims by USB 2.0 & Firewire of transfer rates of 400 MBps or above? SINCE these two interfaces attach to the drive through an ADAPTER to the drive's "IDE" connector, how can they possibly exceed 100 MBps. Now "maybe" if the info was in the cache it most likely would be processed at a higher speed, but how often is that going to happen? Serial ATA on the other hand appears to be a different situation and may indeed be OPERATING at 150 MBps unless your particular external also attaches to an IDE controller/drive. Now were being told of superfast ATA-II; I'm SORRY; I don't believe! I think things are pretty much the same old 100/133/150 MBps and the manufacturers out there are trying to SELL us a pig-in-a-poke. I remember a similar discussion many years ago with reference to an external case that had a 33 MBps controller. At the present I don't buy this stuff, and until I know more, just forget it.

Please shed some light on this subject.