Hi, Roger. No need to send both a support email message
and a forum post: you just double the work for me!
Here's what I sent in reply to your support case, which you submitted at 1:46 and I replied to at 2:01:
This sounds like your USB2 drive was definitely running at USB1 (very slow) speeds, Roger. I'd strongly recommend using your FireWire connection and making sure you don't have any AntiVirus software running at the time of the backup.
Hope that helps!