[alnwlsn]

You might only be able to get 8-16MB/s max out of some of those old drives (especially pre-1994), so you probably aren't missing much.

edit: whoops, that's bytes not bits per second

[eqvinox]

USB 1.1 Full Speed is 12 Mbit, i.e. 1.5 MB/s theoretical, zero overhead accounted for. That's an order of magnitude you're missing there. Whether it matters depends on how large the drive is, I guess.

It also bears pointing out these microcontrollers have built-in parallel memory interface buses, which are likely compatible with IDE (which is just ISA == the 8088/8086 parallel bus on a cable.) With DMA, ketchup and fries…

[stmw]

Exactly, this is why USB was very unattractive for peripherals when it first came out.