Hard Drive Speeds (IDE vs SATA) (NTFS vs exFAT)...?

[DjBetta]

I have 2 external hard drives and I am copying data from my laptop to these external drives.

Hard Drive #1: 2.5" Western Digital Scorpio Blue hard drive
120GB - 5400 rpm
IDE interface (old tech)
Formatted as exFAT.

Hard Drive #2: 2.5" Toshiba hard drive (Sony Vaio)
650GB - 5400 rpm
SATA interface (new tech)
Formatted as exFAT.

I am trying to copy about 45GB worth of data from my laptop onto both of these drives.

Issue/Problem:

Transfer/Copy speed of Hard Drive #1: About 45 min only to transfer/copy.

Transfer/Copy speed of Hard Drive #2: 2 hours and 30 mins to transfer/copy.

So...I am no Computer Tech/Wizard by any means. But...I do know enough to get by and trouble shoot certain stuff. From what I can gather on research/google...

SATA is supposed to be FASTER than IDE!!!! IDE being an older tech is supposed to be slower than SATA!!!! And yet...the Toshiba SATA drive I have is REALLY SLOW compared to the Western Digital IDE hard drive!!!!!

So...What gives...??? Any computer tech wizards in here care to explain...??? Should I format the Toshiba drive to NTFS instead of exFAT...???

[pete]

Speed on external drives depends on the usb interface to the computer. (the drive caddy you are using should say what USB it is)
The difference between USB 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 is vast.

The HDD can run faster than USB. It is USB version that is the bottleneck.

Having said all that... solid state for life. That and a fast USB interface is sooo sweet.