Price vs. Performance

V

Vista Newbie

I am shopping around for an external USB hard disk drive. When I compare
several models, most, if not all, specify the speed as "Up to 480 Mb/sec".
I know this is a theoretical maximum but I am trying to ascertain what
criteria to use to determine what the best value is. For example, I am
interested in a 320GB drive.

My laptop:
Windows Vista Home Premium x64
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 at 2.5 Ghz
4GB RAM
USB 2.0
Firewire 400 connector
Two 120GB 7200 rpm hard drives

I assume that the data transfers will be limited to the speed of the slowest
component involved in getting the data from source to target. The store
geek told me that the fastest transfers would be achieved by the models
supporting Firewire connections.

Is Firewire 400 really faster than USB 2.0?

Does the fact that the external hard drive spins at only 5400 rpm negate the
connection speed advantages of Firewire over USB 2.0?

Would a 7200 rpm drive make a difference or is the read/write speed
irrelevant?
 

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