It should be pretty sweet. A lot of people are bashing it right now stating it won't perform at the same speeds as the internal HDD and due to the USB 1.1 port restriction of the PS2 it won't even read as fast as the disc itself... but this I believe is incorrect.
USB1.1 reads up to 12 MB/sec whereas a 4x DVD-ROM (which is in the PS2) has a data transfer rate of about 5 MB/sec, and the 24x CD-ROM is around 4.8 MB/sec. I think a lot of people are not taking into consideration the speed of the drives in the console.
I like the fact that I can easily move the drive to a friends house and not have to worry about compatibility. I had to try 3 different consoles to get the SWAP MAGIC to work - and that only works for DVD based PS2 games (the CD disc doesn't work).
Quote:USB1.1 reads up to 12 MB/sec whereas a 4x DVD-ROM (which is in the PS2) has a data transfer rate of about 5 MB/sec, and the 24x CD-ROM is around 4.8 MB/sec. I think a lot of people are not taking into consideration the speed of the drives in the console.