External HDD w/ USB2 or F400?
 

What's better if I'm exporting from miniDV--(NLE)-->external HDD, a USB2 connection or a Firewire 400?

what about eSATA?

USB2.0 will be the slowest, and eSATA the fastest connection.
For me, USB2.0 works very well.

USB 2.0 will have the lowest performance of the bunch. On paper, USB2.0 claims that it has a throughput rate of 480 Mb/S (60MB/S). I have never seen a transfer more than 35 MB/S over USB2.0.

Firewire 400 is faster even though it claims a lower throughput of only 400 Mb/S. But since there are less devices that are using the firewire bus, it is more likely for the user to attain the rated throughput. Mostly the reason USB2.0 is slower is because of all of the other devices that are running on the bus at the same time (Keyboard, Mouse, Printer, etc.).

Capturing MiniDV over firewire and capturing to a firewire hard drive is possible, but the computer splits the bandwidth between the two devices. The only way to get 400 Mb/S in and 400 Mb/S out to another device is to run multiple 1394a host cards (not ports, but physical cards) from within the system.

eSata is the fastest available connection right now, and is most preferable to video editors.

Definately go for eSata

I've captured live DV output, from a camera via firewire, through to an external HDD via USB (on a laptop).